- From: Alan Cantor <acantor@oise.utoronto.ca>
- Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 11:21:33 -0400 (EDT)
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
You must be careful with symbols. There are only a handful of symbols, such as the stop sign, that are widely (I would not go so far as to say "universally") understood. Most symbols make sense only within particular cultural contexts. An example: Last month, while travelling in France (and to a lesser extent, in England and Switzerland) I conducted an ongoing "accessibility audit" of public and private places, toilets, transportation systems, etc. etc. AND signage. Simple symbols used on signs, in particular, were sometimes hard for me to decipher because the symbol meant something else to me. Often the meaning of a symbol was completely and "intuitively" transparent to my hosts, but not to me. As an example, when finding one's way through a airport or train station, it is clear to me that an arrow pointing up means "go forward in this direction." In one railroad station in Paris, I saw the same message conveyed by an arrow pointing down... even when it was necessary to climb stairs to reach one's destination! (At the time I was completely at a loss to understand the logic of the symbol. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense: Arrows were used to point to the PATH you must follow, not to show you the DIRECTION you are going, which in any case, is never straight UP!) When designing Web pages, the implication is clear. When you use an image to represent an idea, you can't expect everyone to be able make sense of it. By including Alt-text you give people another strategy for interpreting the message you wish to convey. Alan Alan Cantor Cantor + Associates Workplace Accommodation Consultants New e-mail address: acantor@interlog.com http://www.interlog.com/~acantor
Received on Tuesday, 22 September 1998 11:22:50 UTC