Re: Images/ALT Jon

DD:: There is a long thread going on about ALT usage on the public www-html
mailing list
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/1998Jan/

I asked the people really interested to join us on GL to discuss that.

Most recent message From Liam Quinn: 

> I must say that I'm surprised to see your suggestion that the role
> of ALT and TITLE be switched.  All current browser implementations
> of which I'm aware treat ALT as an image replacement and TITLE as an
> image supplement (with the exception of the ALT-as-tooltip
> implementation).  Surely an image's replacement should be
> *functional* and its supplement *descriptive*, no?

DD:: and another forward:

From: Ian Hickson <exxieh@bath.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: CORRECT implementation of IMG alt/title
-------

>but one suggestion I have heard of is two make two
>similar attribute to the <IMG> tag. One would be the 'alt' text
>displayed when images are off, or not supported, the other would be
>for containing the tooltip text for when the images are loaded.

Ok, let's get this sorted out once and for all.

SRC is to give a picture.
ALT is to give a textual *replacement* for blind users, search engines, and
text-mode users. It should not in *any* way bring the user to the attention
of there being a picture.
TITLE is for a description of the image, which is rendered AS A TOOLTIP in
HTML4 browsers, and could include image size or other relevant information.
This attribute is actually present on most HTML4 elements.

If the picture is decoarative only then ALT="", title could include image
description and size.
If the image is just colourful text, then ALT="whatever the text is".

<P>This is an <IMG SRC="eg.png" ALT="example"> of what I mean.</P>

Are we clear now?!

Received on Tuesday, 27 January 1998 09:24:04 UTC