- From: Kynn Bartlett <kynn-hwg@idyllmtn.com>
- Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 12:24:04 -0700
- To: Al Gilman <asgilman@iamdigex.net>, w3c-wai-au@w3.org
One thing to point out is that it's VERY easy for the filename and/or file size to get out of synch. Someone who is now our client at Idyll Mountain Internet previously had a home page that used the "filename.jpg 75238 bytes" ALT text for their primary image. Unfortunately, someone with less sense than is desirable replaced the image with an ANIMATED version of the same logo, that was over 1 meg in size. They did not change the ALT text! This resulted in a "75238 bytes" ALT text for a file that was much, much larger! I would suggest that since the image filename is already available via the SRC attribute, using ALT to convey this redundant information is a poor idea. If the image name is required by certain users, then it should be the job of the User Agent (browser) to provide that information upon request, possibly with an option to use the file name as alternative text if there is no value specified for the ALT attribute. Similarly, if someone requires the file size, this could likely be accomplished with an intelligent User Agent that issues HEAD requests for all images on the page and presents the size of the content inline. I think it's important to separate which information can be supplied by the User Agent and which must be supplied by the Author (or the Authoring Tool). If the User Agent can easily and _accurately_ autogenerate something from the information presented to it, then there is no need for the Author or the Authoring Tool to do anything special. All the information necessary for the "low bandwidth" user to make a decision can be gathered without needing to take over and misuse ALT, and so it should be avoided whenever possible. [Apologies if I'm basically repeating exactly what Charles said.] -- Kynn Bartlett mailto:kynn@hwg.org President, HTML Writers Guild http://www.hwg.org/ AWARE Center Director http://aware.hwg.org/
Received on Thursday, 24 June 1999 15:29:03 UTC