Re: Not only naming and wording

A rare occasion this: I disagree with Nir!

Nir suggested that "invisible D-links" are not a good solution. They are 
in fact the only way that most users will (currently) have access to long 
descriptions. They are not completely invisible, since they can be made 
to have a border, and they appear in tab orders. I agree that "d" is not 
very helpful to a lot of people, especially outside the English speaking 
world (= the vast majority of web users) and D-link is only a little 
better. But the simple expedient of giving the resource a title such as 
"Description of XXX" and repeating that at the start of the page will 
make it clear to people what is going on pretty fast.

It is perfectly true that there is "eye-candy" on many web pages which 
needs no description, since it is a hack which is used to provide an 
effect for graphic browsers. This is where ALT="" should be part of the hack.

But in other cases a D-link is better than nothing. And nothing is the 
alternative offered to most people at the moment.

I actually prefer the invisible link to a "D" all over the place - 
ALT="D-link" TITLE="Description of Image" gives a fair bit of information 
for most people to work with in English. Websites in other languages 
should probably use ALT="D-link" TITLE="Description de l'image" or 
whatever is appropriate.

Charles McCN

Received on Tuesday, 24 November 1998 04:10:02 UTC