Redundant alt text??

I'm interested to know what the purpose of including alternative text
links in conjunction with alt text for map areas is. When using a screen
reader, such redundancy results in listening to the links twice. The
same aplies for linked images.Would it not be preferable to eliminate
map area alt text for a single map alt text pointing the user to a set
of text links below. For example, alt="This is a navigation map: see
text links below". And, eliminate alt text for linked images in favour
of text links below. Listening to alt text and then alternative text
links causes confusion.

Should it not be one or the other? Preferable text links

"http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wai-gl-techniques-19980918.html
Technique A.1.3.2
In addition to providing alt-text, provide redundant textual links. If
the A element is used instead of AREA, the author may describe the
active regions and provide redundant links at the same time:"

Greg Gay
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre
University of Toronto

Received on Monday, 9 November 1998 17:37:51 UTC