- From: Kasday, Leonard <kasday@att.com>
- Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 08:07:27 -0400
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Re bullets >>For example a bullet shaped like an arrow would have alt text "bullet" not "yellow arrow pointing right" >No - that is one of the most annoying, worst uses of ALT on the web. I support "bullet". Here's why. First, it often helps to put a period after the ALT text. For example Bullet. product one. Bullet. product two. Bullet. product three. sounds better than bullet product one. bullet product two. bullet product three. If you have punctuation turned off, but your screen reader does a good job of rendering the closing inflection implied by a bullet, the first version, with periods after each "bullet", is easier to hear, and addresses one of the problems of This use of punctuation is now mandatory for ALT text in the att.com web site. See http://www.att.com/style/alttext.html under "requirements for new pages" item 2. As for the word "bullet" I did a survey on this earlier this year on webwatch-l and blind-l. "bullet" got the highest rating, 6.2 on a 10 point scale where 0 is very bad, 10 is very good, and 5 is neutral. This is based on only 8 or 9 responses per item, so it is not statistically significant. However, I think it shows significant support for "bullet". This is a guideline in the AT&T alt text standards. (The guideline calls for more description if it has meaning). I agree it does not look as nice as an asterisk, but I think visual appearance is less important. I attached the survey results. These are what I posted on webwatch-l a few months ago. Len opionions here just my own, not necessarily those of my employer ==================================== kasday@att.com phone 732 949 2693 Leonard R. Kasday Room 1L-333 AT&T Laboratories 101 Crawfords Corner Rd. Holmdel NJ 07733 ========== survey results ========= Here's table of the average ratings for 4 alternatives, on a scale of 1-10. You'll have to turn on pronunciation to hear some of them. Description average rating [tiny blue sphere] 4.0 * 5.1 [*] 6.0 [bullet] 6.2 There were only 8 or 9 responses for each so the differences aren't that significant, although I'd be wary of saying "tiny blue spheres" in every item of a long list. Basically, some people preferred the actual description like "bullet", or in fewer cases, "tiny blue spheres", while others liked using punctuation characters like * and [*] because they could easily turn off punctuation with their screenreaders. I also asked about more elaborate bullets, e.g. open mouths with wiggling tongues, and asked what people though about labeling each with just an asterisk *, but putting a WGBH style D link to the full description after the first. Responses were mixed. On person stressed that if the bullets had specific meanings, that information should not be in the D link. That is indeed how WGBH intended D links to be used. The next question concerned the recommendation I've sometimes seen that ALT text should be used on bullet lists to make them look like numbered lists to people with screen readers. The mean response to this was 4.3. People objected that numbering the links because it > implies an order to the information that wasn't intended. And also that it would be > Quite confusing if the links are numbered setting is turned on in Lynx On the other hand, another person thought that it would be > a handy way to keep one's place, especially if they [the > list items] are numerous. And one person said the would be appropriate > if the list has a logical sequence.
Received on Friday, 24 October 1997 08:08:12 UTC