RE: ALT text revisited

At 10:34 AM 18/02/98 -0500, Kasday, Leonard R (Len), ALTEC wrote:
>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?

Right, my including "Welcome to" was mostly to emphasize the functional
nature of the ALT text.  In practice, I'd probably leave it off for brevity.

>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?

Yes.

>The only unfortunate thing is that the attribute name "TITLE" doesn't
>really communicate what TITLE does.

Think of the TITLE attribute as analagous to an HTML document's TITLE
element.  In other words, think about what you would use as a title for an
image (or paragraph or applet, etc.).  For the A element, the TITLE
attribute could logically be the TITLE element of the linked HTML document.

Liam

>>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 18:15:10 UTC