Re: Null Alt Text

I was trying to create a method where screen readers could discern the
purpose of an image. if "these images are completely irrelevant to
non-visual media, and should be ignored completely" then the screen reader
should be confident that that is the case.

Some HTML editors set the Alt text to null (ALT="") and let the user fill it
in later. If a screen reader came across an image with null Alt text then
they would have to assume that the image was not a 'spacer' and would have
to say "image".

If the image had Alt text of spaces (ALT="  ") then the screen reader could
assume that the author intended the image to be a 'spacer' and could ignore
it or pause the speech output.

Chris

P.S. This reminds me of a Seinfeld episode. It's a discussion about nothing
<grin>


-----Original Message-----
From: Charles McCathie Nevile <charlesn@srl.rmit.EDU.AU>
To: Chris Ridpath <chris.ridpath@utoronto.ca>
Cc: Charles (Chuck) Oppermann <chuckop@microsoft.com>; w3c-wai-au@w3.org
<w3c-wai-au@w3.org>
Date: November 25, 1998 7:41 AM
Subject: Re: Null Alt Text


>Not quite. The use of spacer images is primarily a kluge to support
>visual layout. In some cases these images are completely irrelevant to
>non-visual media, and should be ignored completely, by providing null ALT
>values (ALT=""). This also applies to some 'eye candy', or images used to
>fill in space, although one could provide ALT="dum de dum de dum" just to
>make it as annoying to non-visual users as to visual users waiting to
>download it.
>
>All images should indeed have ALT text. However, a null value is not
>intrinsically unacceptable as ALT text.
>
>Charles McCathieNevile
>
>On Tue, 24 Nov 1998, Chris Ridpath wrote:
>> All images should have Alt text. Images that have Alt text set to Null
>> (Alt="") would be incorrect.
>>
>> The WAI guidelines are at:
>> http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wai-gl-techniques-19980918.html#spacer-images
>> but they do not seem to seem to clarify this matter.
>>
>> Make sense?
>>
>> Chris
>

Received on Wednesday, 25 November 1998 10:18:09 UTC