Re: abbr vs alt

On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 01:38:42 +0100, Jim Jewett <jimjjewett@gmail.com>  
wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:13 PM, Sorin Schwimmer <sxn02@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>   <abbr title="Uses SmartChip technology"><img  
>> src="smartchip.jpg"></abbr>
>
> My first thought was that this was clearly wrong; there is no text
> inside the abbr, and no alt on the img.
>
> But as I thought more about it, I started to wonder if Sorin's
> solution is actually better than the current solution.  (Except, of
> course, that it isn't standard -- and I'm not sure how hard it would
> be to teach assistive technology about idioms like this.)
>
> Would  <img src="smartchip.jpg" alt="Uses SmartChip technology">
> really be better?  The "Uses" really isn't part of the alt, and people
> browsing *with* images would lose the valuable information about why
> that image was chosen.  (Equivalent to a key or legend on a map.)
>
> <abbr title="Uses"><img src="smartchip.jpg" alt="Uses SmartChip
> technology"></abbr> gets the image right, but is even more clearly
> abuse of abbr.
>
> <span title="Uses SmartChip technology"><img src="smartchip.jpg"></span>
> is worse because the iconic image is arguably an abbreviation, and
> because titles on span are less likely to be made available.

Under the assumption that the image under the given context means just  
'SmartChip', how about

    <img src="smartship.jpg" alt="SmartChip" title="Uses SmartChip  
technology">

-- 
Simon Pieters
Opera Software