Re: Microsoft's response on the ALT attribute and how Frontpage deals with it

----- Original Message -----
From: B.K. DeLong <bkdelong@naw.org>
To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 1999 1:29 AM
Subject: Microsoft's response on the ALT attribute and how Frontpage deals
with it


>My comments interspersed.
>
>>From: A Microsoft Product Manager
>>To: "'bkdelong@naw.org'" <bkdelong@naw.org>
>>Subject: FW: ALT attributes default to filesize and filename
>>
>>There is no way for software to know that a magnifying glass is for
>>searching.  There is a way in the image properties dialog box to put
>>whatever alt text you want in for an image.  We have to pick a default.
The
>>benefit to having the file size over nothing is that users who have their
>>browsers set to not download images will be able to see how big (read: how
>>long it will take to download) each image on the page.
>
>My question was why would they care what the image size is if they have
>images turned off. Note she didn't address text-browsers or people using
>screen readers.
>--
>B.K. DeLong                  360 Huntington Ave.

I think you're being unfair in yopur response.  An authoring tool has three
options for providing defaults ALT values - give a null string, give a
standard chunk of text "This is an image" or provide information
automatically derived from the image file "Size =100 Kb".  Of these
alternatives, I think the latter is preferable.

What concrete suggestion would you make to vendors of authoring tools?

Thanks

Brian Kelly
------------------------------------------------------
Brian Kelly, UK Web Focus
UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, England, BA2 7AY
Email: b.kelly@ukoln.ac.uk URL: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Homepage: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/b.kelly.html
Phone: 01225 323943 FAX: 01225 826838

Received on Tuesday, 26 January 1999 04:26:30 UTC