- From: Jesper Tverskov <jesper.tverskov@mail.tele.dk>
- Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 16:02:39 +0200
- To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>, "'Michael Cooper'" <michaelc@watchfire.com>, "'Wendy Chisholm'" <wendy@w3.org>
I know very well that using alt="" in images, meaning "decoration", etc., is a long standing convention. I am using it myself and I recommend others to use it, but I consider it a bad convention, a disservice to accessibility. Now we are also going to get summary="", title="", accesskey="", you name it. It is bad for many reasons. Many tools for making web pages put in all sorts of attributes="" by default so web page authors can fill them in. Many web page authors when putting in attributes "by hand", often start with title="", summary="", alt="", etc. especially when they are in doubt of what value to use right a way, they prefer to put in the attribute first and to add the right value later. That is the main reason why putting special meaning to attribute="", meaning null, is the worst of all choices we could have made. It is the worst choice possible if we want to use the attribute for testing. Most often the meaning of attribute="" is not null but that the author has forgotten to finish the attribute, the right value is not yet in place. I am just suggesting putting an end to the above "madness" of thinking that attribute="" is great. It is not. We should come up with something better, and we should not expect for other specs to accept so bad solutions in the long run. They give accessibility a bad name. Best regards, Jesper Tverskov www.smackthemouse.com
Received on Friday, 27 August 2004 14:02:36 UTC