html techniques for WCAG 2.0

Sirs

I'm in the process of writing our approach document to WCAG requirements and
naturally wish to use the latest 2.0 and understand that it is in draft form.

I would like to add a little to the discussion, the document....

http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-WCAG20-HTML-TECHS-20041119/

I am concerned about section 9.4 Images and text links side by side

The descriptive paragraph in 9.4 states that
'...The preferred method to address this is to put the text and image together
in one link, and provide null alternative text on the image to eliminate
duplication of text.'
and the example given is...
Example:
An icon and text are within the same link. The icon has null alt text and the
text beside it describes the link.
 
<a href="products.html">
  <img src="icon.gif" alt="" />
  Products page
</a>

This however conflicts with section 9.2 which states
Task: 
Where appropriate, use the title attribute of the a element to clarify links.
My 'confusion' exists in that in 9.4 having got rid of the alt text for the
image where there is an image and text link side by side, you now have no alt or
title text for either the image or the link. I feel that you should decide
whether you are going to have a title element as in 9.2 or an image element as
in 9.4. There should be a sequence of precedents where there are multiple active
elements.
My personal preference is that the hyperlink takes precedent as that is the
operable element regardless of the fact that the anchor tag encloses an image.

I've also read in issue 896 that...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Each link must contain text in only one place (title attribute, content or IMG 
alt attribute) if there are 5 or  more A (anchor) elements in the document.

Remove text from within the anchor until it appears in only one place. Anchors 
can contain text in their body content, TITLE attribute or IMG ALT text.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I feel that there should be a table or matrix of precedents of what is most
appropriate in what circumstances if for no other reason than for consistency
which has links to usability concepts.

I'm sure however, somebody has already thought of it.

Thanks in advance for any help you may give.

Kind regards

Andrew Clarke

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Andrew CLARKE
Webmaster
Corporate communications department EUR/C/I/EN
Michelin Tyre Public Limited Company
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e-mail: andrew.clarke@uk.michelin.com
web :   www.michelin.co.uk
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Received on Monday, 24 January 2005 13:37:48 UTC