Re: background images

"Leonard R. Kasday" wrote:
> 
> I just came across a page with a background image
> 
> <body background="image.gif">
> 
> There was no ALT text... indeed there's no way to add alt text here.
> 
> Backgrounds are often just decoration, but this one had actual textual
> info.  So we need a guideline.  E.g. to
> 
>   1. limit background images to pure decoration  or
> 
> 2.  include any info in the background image in the text of the page,
> possibly invisible text or

Here's some discussion on this topic from June 1999, starting
with a suggested clarification [1]:

      | I think the WG should strengthen a statement
      | in the guidelines that any important 
      | content inserted by a style sheet be available in the 
      | document source as well (rationale: device-independence,
      | users can override styles, etc.)

The example given in that email is that W3C Recommendations use
a background image in the upper left hand corner to indicate
that they are Recommendations. This sounds like your issue.

 - Ian


[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/1999AprJun/0202.html
 
> Of course, background is deprecated (cf
> http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#edef-BODY ) but that doesn't
> help us now.
> 
> Please tell me if I've missed something in the guidelines about this.  I
> know its there in spirit, but I don't see a literal reference in 1.1, which
> states
> 
> >For example, in HTML:
> >         Use "alt" for the IMG, INPUT, and APPLET elements, or provide a
> > text equivalent in the content of the OBJECT
> >         and APPLET elements.
> >         For complex content (e.g., a chart) where the "alt" text does not
> > provide a complete text equivalent, provide an
> >         additional description using, for example, "longdesc" with IMG or
> > FRAME, a link inside an OBJECT element, or a
> >         description link.
> >         For image maps, either use the "alt" attribute with AREA, or use
> > the MAP element with A elements (and other text)
> >         as content.
> 
> Len
> 
> --
> Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
> Institute on Disabilities/UAP, and
> Department of Electrical Engineering
> Temple University 423 Ritter Annex, Philadelphia, PA 19122
> 
> kasday@acm.org
> http://astro.temple.edu/~kasday
> 
> (215) 204-2247 (voice)  (800) 750-7428 (TTY)
> 
> The WAVE web page accessibility evaluation assistant:
> http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/

-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                         +1 831 457-2842
Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

Received on Wednesday, 21 June 2000 17:48:41 UTC