RE: ALT text revisited

Hi Liam,

I see you added the words "Welcome to" in your ALT text for Archimedes
plumbing, even though those words don't appear in the banner.

I take it that this follows the philosophy that ALT text should reflect
the function of the image, rather than a literal rendition, right?

Thus, we'd have "Welcome to Archimedes plumbing etc." on the home page,
but if the banner is repeated on other pages the words "Welcome to"
would be omitted.  Do you agree with that?

I'm comfortable with this, at least now that we have TITLE and LONGDESC.
 If all we had was ALT text, then there'd be the conflict of function
vs. literal description.  People have strong feelings on both sides of
that conflict.  This allows us to avoid that conflict.

The only unfortunate thing is that the attribute name "TITLE" doesn't
really communicate what TITLE does.  Something like SHORTDESC would be a
better match for the functionality we're giving it (e.g. "Archimedes in
the tub").   But this doesn't bother me too much, especially if
authoring tools make the function clear.  (After all, how many people
using wysiwyg tools know whether to use "SRC" or "URL" in their code).

What do other folks think, as if I need to ask (smile)?

Len


All opinions expressed here are my own, not necessarily those of my
employer.
=============================================================
kasday@att.com         phone 732 949 2693

Leonard R. Kasday
Room 1J-316A
AT&T Laboratories
101 Crawfords Corner Rd.
Holmdel NJ 07733

Liam wrote:

>----------
>From: 	Liam Quinn[SMTP:liam@htmlhelp.com]
>Sent: 	Tuesday, February 17, 1998 8:08 PM
>To: 	Kasday, Leonard R (Len), ALTEC; 'w3c-wai-gl@w3.org'
>Cc: 	'w3c-wai-ig@w3.org'
>Subject: 	RE: ALT text revisited
>
>At 10:40 AM 17/02/98 -0500, Kasday, Leonard R (Len), ALTEC wrote:
>>Suppose  we have a web site for a hypothetical business "Archimedes
>>Plumbing", and the banner contains the text "Archimedes Plumbing" and
>>shows Archimedes, a white haired 60-ish Greek gentleman, sitting in a
>>sudsy bathtub, wielding a pipe wrench above his head.   His boney
>>kneecaps just break the surface of the suds.  The color scheme is based
>>on cool blue.  There's a slogan at the bottom of the banner, "Your best
>>plumbing value".  
>
>I would use the following:
>
><H1><IMG SRC="banner.gif" ALT="Welcome to Archimedes Plumbing, your best
>plumbing value" TITLE="Archimedes in the tub" LONGDESC="banner.html"></H1>
>
>And for the actual long description,
>
>The <A HREF="banner.gif">Archimedes Plumbing banner</A> shows Archimedes, a
>white-haired 60-ish Greek gentleman, sitting in a sudsy bathtub, wielding a
>pipe wrench above his head. His boney kneecaps just break the surface of
>the suds. The color scheme is based on cool blue. At the bottom of the
>banner is the slogan "Your best plumbing value".
>
>--
>Liam Quinn
>Web Design Group            Enhanced Designs, Web Site Development
>http://www.htmlhelp.com/    http://enhanced-designs.com/
>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 18 February 1998 10:59:16 UTC