Re: DRAFT response Re[2]: Request for PFWG WAI review of Omitting alt Attribute for Critical Content

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Al Gilman" <Alfred.S.Gilman@IEEE.org>
To: <wai-xtech@w3.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2007 6:09 PM
Subject: DRAFT response Re[2]: Request for PFWG WAI review of Omitting alt 
Attribute for Critical Content


> <note
> class="inDraft">
> Somebody please confirm or deny this.  Do screen readers
> actually skip images with @alt=""?
> </note>

<blockquote cite="http://www.webaim.org/techniques/screenreader/">
a.. Screen readers will read the alt text of images, if alt text is present. 
JAWS precedes the alt text with the word "graphic." If the image is a link, 
JAWS precedes the alt text with "graphic link."
a.. Screen readers ignore images without alt text and say nothing, but users 
can set their preferences to read the file name.
a.. If the image without alt text is a link, screen readers will generally 
read the link destination (the href attribute in the HTML markup).
a.. Screen readers read the alt text for image map hot spots, but not 
necessarily in the visual location where the image occurs. In terms of HTML 
validity, the hot spots (<area> tags) do not have to be adjacent to the 
image in the HTML markup (the <img> tag), but developers should not separate 
them in the markup. If the image and its hot spots are separated in the 
markup, JAWS will read the alt text for the hot spots out of order with the 
rest of the document.
a.. </blockquote>

Cheers.
Roberto Scano
IWA/HWG

Received on Sunday, 25 November 2007 18:35:32 UTC