Re: What now ALT?

Hi Maurice
>If the image has NO VALUE to anyone why does it still need an alt?

The current HTML 5 spec (http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#the-img)
clearly states
(normative) instances where the null alt value alt="" is to be used. It also
states instances "critical content"  where no alt attribute may be used.

If they can be configured to deal with alt="_none" why can't they just be
configured to deal with an image with no alt value?


The issue is that UAs do not differentiate between no alt attribute on an
image that can be safely ignored and no alt attribute on an image that
contains "critical content". The current heursitic methods available are not
sufficient to reliably differentiate between useful and useless images that
don't have an alt attribute. So AT UA's for the most part simply ignore
images without alt attributes.


What is required is something to signify that an image is of importance, but
has not been given an explicitly associated alt text. John has suggested
alt="_none" a prescibed value for the alt in these cases. This may or may
not be a viable solution, but something is needed to provide an indication
that the image contains important information that is not provided via the
alt text. Another proposal amongst many is to provide a new attribute
"noalt".

The arguments put forward by you and the likes of jon barnett: Simply not
bothering to provide any indication of the images content, is no solution at
all.

On 09/10/2007, Maurice Carey <maurice@thymeonline.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 10/8/07 3:19 PM, "John Foliot" <foliot@wats.ca> wrote:
>
> >Fair enough, but they are also working on a principle of avoiding
> "bloat",
> >and of "paving cowpaths".
>
> alt="spacer.gif" appears 50 times on http://www.hookmitchell.com/
> that counts as bloat in my book.
>
> >I have floated the idea of a reserved value for alt (I suggested
> alt="_none"
> >[with the underscore])
>
> alt="_none" also counts as "bloat" to me.
>
> If the image has NO VALUE to anyone why does it still need an alt?
>
> >User Agents could be configured to deal with
> >an expected value such as this consistently (as could Adaptive
> Technology),
>
> If they can be configured to deal with alt="_none" why can't they just be
> configured to deal with an image with no alt value?
>
>
>
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>
>


-- 
with regards

Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG Europe
Director - Web Accessibility Tools Consortium

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