Re: null alt revisited

I'm with Jim on this. It is also possible in most browsers to find out
whether there are images there (in lynx press * or there is a stratup
option) - if I want to know whether there are images I check explicitly.

charles mccn

On Thu, 8 Apr 1999 thatch@us.ibm.com wrote:

  
  
  Re: "I'd almost rather see [IMAGE] displayed than see " ""
  It is easy to visually ignore [IMAGE]. It is impossible to ignore it when
  you are listening to the page.
  
  Jim Thatcher
  IBM Special Needs Systems
  www.ibm.com/sns
  thatch@us.ibm.com
  (512)838-0432
  
  
  
  Kynn Bartlett <kynn-hwg@idyllmtn.com> on 04/08/99 11:13:27 AM
  
  To:   love26@gorge.net
  cc:   "w3c-wai-au@w3.org" <w3c-wai-au@w3.org> (bcc: James
        Thatcher/Austin/IBM)
  Subject:  Re: null alt revisited
  
  
  
  
  
  At 08:57 a.m. 04/08/99 -0700, William Loughborough wrote:
  >A friend writes "I think alt=" " would be effective in forcing the
  >webauthor to do SOMETHING but I also think we should be hounding browser
  >vendors to break any page on which NOTHING was done with it".
  
  As a user of lynx and an Opera user who has 'image loading off'
  by default, I'd almost rather see [IMAGE] displayed than see " "
  (whitespace), in the case of a broken web page.  (Broken meaning
  something that doesn't have correct ALT text.  Naturally, I far
  prefer correct ALT text to anything else.)
  
  Why?  Because then at least I know there's something there!  In
  the above scenario, the designer would be just as negligent BUT
  I'd have no clue that they'd done that, since it might not even
  show me any indication of an image at all.
  
  I'm not saying that lack of ALT is acceptable, I'm just showing
  why a _default_ of ALT=" " is just as bad.
  
  --
  Kynn Bartlett <kynn@hwg.org>
  President, Governing Board Member
  HTML Writers Guild <URL:http://www.hwg.org>
  
  
  
  

--Charles McCathieNevile            mailto:charles@w3.org
phone: +1 617 258 0992   http://www.w3.org/People/Charles
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/WAI
MIT/LCS  -  545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139,  USA

Received on Thursday, 8 April 1999 13:23:21 UTC