Re: Alt text and descriptions

Al wrote:

> [Gregg questioned my suggestion that null ALT strings be used.]
> 
> I myself believe that authors should be encouraged to consider
> null ALT strings as within their range of choice if they will
> take the trouble to think about ALT strings at all.  I have no
> big problem with "IBM logo" suggestion.  I would prefer that the
> WAI not go out to beat people up telling them they must have a
> non-null ALT string for every image.

ALT="" is really telling something about the image: that it is
pure decoration, but that the user-agent is still free to try to guess
what it is (using some HTTP metadata, the filename, etc).


Another convention I remember coming across regarding null ALT was an
optimization of the above where the convention could be stated at the
beginning of the HTML, in some kind of (I'm making that syntax up)
 <META name=ALT-CONVENTION content=NONE-MEANS-DECO>

and the rest of the file would not have an ALT attribute where ALT=""
would be used otherwise.

Received on Friday, 11 July 1997 08:14:20 UTC