RE: ALT-attribute usage (fwd)

Hmmmm.  Good point.

So we should try to find out what works best for vision, screen reading, 
and braille simultaneously.

Sounds like we need an intelligent browser or style sheets, or.... What?

Maybe we do something that can be trapped easily and converted to the form 
appropriate for the medium you are using.   It seems that too often what 
works directly for one medium doesn't work for the other.  If so what is 
the default?


Ideas?

Gregg


-- ------------------------------
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
Professor - Human Factors
Dept of Ind. Engr. - U of Wis.
Director - Trace R & D Center
gv@trace.wisc.edu    http://trace.wisc.edu
FAX 608/262-8848
For a list of our listserves send "lists" to listproc@trace.wisc.edu


-----Original Message-----
From:	Jason White [SMTP:jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU]
Sent:	Sunday, November 09, 1997 2:01 AM
To:	HTML Guidelines Working Group
Subject:	Re: ALT-attribute usage (fwd)

When accessing the web via a braille display, I would prefer that bullets
indicating list items be represented by the asterisk character, as in Lynx
2.7.1. In such a case, it would be best to use the UL and LI elements, and
a null ALT value if the bullet is to be represented by an image. For
example:

<ul>
<li> <img alt="" src="bullet.jpg"> Item 1
[...]
</ul>

Unfortunately, braille displays are often overlooked when designing HTML
access guidelines. This situation also indicates that the sooner audio and
braille style sheet mechanisms are implemented, the easier it will be for
HTML authors to design their documents in such a way as to meet everyone's
needs.

If the word "item" preceded every item in a list, this would undoubtedly
be detrimental to the efficiency with which the document could be read via
a 40-cell braille display, even if the software is configured to apply
braille contractions automatically.

The fact that solutions which are appropriate for speech synthesizers are
not necessarily convenient when when using a braille display, and that
such conventions are different again from those which are most effective
on screen or in print, highlights the need for a flexible and
sophisticated style sheet mechanism for controlling the presentation of
HTML documents.

Received on Sunday, 9 November 1997 10:36:37 UTC