My comments on tables vs image maps

To clarify my position, I think that text links are more usable
than images are links, which in turn are more 
usable than image maps.

This applies to users of graphical browsers.

There are many reasons for that, including 
the ability to ditinguish between visited and 
unvisited links and using active and hover feedbacks.

In a text browser, all
three options are equivalent (if there is correct alt text) 
as images and image maps are upgarded 
to text by the browser.

My point on tables was that some authors write image maps 
that arrange the links to look like a table (usually
with one column; see the notorious CNN interactive site)

I said that using an HTML table with text links, gets 
the same look as an image map (see CNN interactive 
text-only bad-tables version) without loosing the 
advantages of text links.

Clearly from the point of view of accessibility putting the 
links in a a list is better than in a table.

Nir Dagan                            
Assistant Professor of Economics      
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Barcelona (Spain)

email: dagan@upf.es
Website: http://www.econ.upf.es/%7Edagan/

Received on Thursday, 30 July 1998 09:53:10 UTC