RE: [techs] text euiqvalents in links

I tend to prefer putting both the <img> and the text inside the anchor
and setting alt="".  This is the best way I've found for avoiding the
unnecessary repetion of link text in a screen reader.  (Chris notes that
some of the methods he lists make the link audible "only twice."  That
"only" is fine for pages that have only one or two such links; but if
there are 20 or 30 of them the repetition becomes really burdensome-- it
can double the length of time quired to listen to the page.

John

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-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Charles McCathieNevile
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 4:14 pm
To: WAI GL
Subject: [techs] text euiqvalents in links



Hi, this comes from a discussion in the ER working group. Do we have any
sense that one or the other of the four approaches is a better way of
doing things? My preference has always been to have the image, and the
text presented as well. This could be done by any UAAG conformant
browser, could be done in current browsers by means of CSS for those
with good suport, and by XSLT or javascriplet for Explorer.

On a side note, is there a simple mechanism to make these into a test
case that is available?

cheers

Chaals

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 16:35:03 -0500
From: Chris Ridpath <chris.ridpath@utoronto.ca>
To: WAI ER IG List <w3c-wai-er-ig@w3.org>
Subject: Re: [check 7] ALT text can't be empty (null or all spaces) if
    image is used as an anchor

When an IMG is used as an anchor, you've got to have a text equivalent.
But what's the best way to implement the text equivalent?

Within the anchor:
<a href="cats.html"><img src="cat.jpg" alt=""/>cats</a>

Alt text:
<a title="cats" href="cats.html"><img src="cat.jpg" alt="cats"/></a>

Title on anchor:
<a title="cats" href="cats.html"><img src="cat.jpg" alt=""/></a>

Title on IMG:
<a href="cats.html"><img src="cat.jpg" alt="" title="cats" /></a>

Using all 4:
<a title="cats" href="cats.html"><img src="cat.jpg" alt="cats"
title="cats" />cats</a>

I tried this on Jaws 4.5 and it read the text fine no matter where it
was.

When the text was on all 4 it only read the text twice.

I propose that there must be at least one place for the text. Doesn't
matter where and it can be on multiple places. Yes, it may be read more
than once if it occurs multiple times but it gives more flexability.

Chris

Received on Monday, 29 March 2004 17:36:50 UTC