Re: alt text seen or not?

That is exactly the point I am trying to make.

A sighted person surfing the net with graphics turned off, because they
have a low end processor, slow modem, or pay for connect time, would
only see the original text links at the bottom of the page. There isn't
any indication when you look at the image box, that there's anything to
pass their mouse over, assuming they can use one.

Granted, there are other browsers that people in this situation can use,
however, as a state government, we are not in a position to make these
browser choices or mandates for our constituents. We need to to
accommodate their browser of choice, and their connection by necessity.
We could be talking about a student at school, or an senior citizen at
the local senior citizen center, both of whom are using computers that
don't belong to them. They may not have the authorization or hard drive
space to download another browser.

From the WCAG:
Guideline 1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual
content.  
Provide content that, when presented to the user, conveys essentially
the same function or purpose as auditory or visual content. 
1.5 Until user agents render text equivalents for client-side image map
links, provide redundant text links for each active region of a
client-side image map. [Priority 3] 

Perhaps, when the user agents catch up, the use of alternate text links
will not be required. Until then, the use of alternate text links will
make our pages accessible to a wider audience.


-- 
Kathleen Anderson
State Comptroller's Office
55 Elm Street, Room 101
Hartford, Connecticut 06106
voice: (860) 702-3355   fax: (860) 702-3634
e-mail: kathleen.anderson@po.state.ct.us
URL OSC: http://www.osc.state.ct.us
URL ACCESS: http://www.cmac.state.ct.us/access



David Poehlman wrote:
> 
> if alt text is not available, should not there be an alternate
> somution?  for instance, in some cases, alt text is only available when
> you pass your <mouse> over the image.  with no mouse to pass, shouldn't
> that be rendered alternatively so that more people with disabilities can
> be accommodated?
> --
> Hands-On Technolog(eye)s
> ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/poehlman
> http://poehlman.clark.net
> mailto:poehlman@clark.net
> voice 301-949-7599
> end sig.

Received on Monday, 17 January 2000 10:45:14 UTC