Re: advice on alt text for image maps

2014-01-13 13:40, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
> On 13/01/2014 10:56, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
>> Here the problem might be that an advent calendar probably has cognitive
>> accessibility issues. I know what an advent calendar is when I see one,
>> but it's not that obvious to all people. This is relevant because such
>> issues may make it necessary to explain something about it, and then
>> there is the "risk" that again, alt="" would be most adequate.
>>
>> And even to a person who recognizes such calendars, it is not clear
>> whether the calendar is for entertainment only (you click on a day, you
>> see some picture revealed) or whether there is some action involved,
>
> Both of these issues seem orthogonal to the original problem here of 
> whether or not an alt is generally useful or not on the overall image 

There is no dispute here over the need for an alt attribute. The issue 
is what the attribute value should be. My point has been that alt="" for 
an <img> is adequate when the purpose of the image is adequately 
achieved by text before the image and alt attributes of <area> elements.


>
> There will always be situations where a developer may opt to provide 
> alternative explanation in preceding text rather than the image itself 
> (as is also the case for regular images).

In the case being discussed (a simple map), there is an explanation 
before the image. It is not alternative; it explains, whether images are 
shown or not, the choice that the user is expected to make or can make: 
a choice between two areas.

If you want an example of a map used as an image map that might need a 
nonempty alt attribute, consider using a map containing Europe and Asia 
and used to let the user choose between them. In that case, it might not 
be evident from the names where the border is drawn, but it would be 
rather evident from the map. So the alt text might need to tell where 
the border is. Of course, alt="Map of Europe and Asia" would not do that 
at all.

-- 
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Received on Monday, 13 January 2014 12:56:58 UTC