Re: img alt text, links and titles

I understand your reasoning for using "image" in alt but it is still not
representing the image.

----- Original Message -----
From: <kynn-eda@idyllmtn.com>
To: "Ineke van der Maat" <inekemaa@xs4all.nl>
Cc: "Charles F. Munat" <chas@munat.com>; "Charles McCathieNevile"
<charles@w3.org>; <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 1:59 PM
Subject: Re: img alt text, links and titles


Ineke asked:
> When I use alt="" because it is a meaningless picture, the blind user
has no idea there is  a image in the page. But what to do when
> I have to mention who has the copyrights of that meaningless image?

There's no real good solutions to this; I would say that if you have
image content such as this which _is_ meaningful and _cannot_ be
replaced by text, then you probably _should_ put in ALT text which
calls attention to the fact it's an image.  For example:

     <div class="image">
       <img src="ski034.jpg" alt="(Image of Woman Skiing)"
            title="Image of Woman Skiing (LongDesc available)"
            longdesc="longdesc/ski034.html">
       <div class="copyright">
         Image &copy; Copyright 1999 by Kynn Bartlett
       </div>
     </div>

Whenever you have a longdesc, you probably _do_ want to point out
that it is an image because then the user will expect there is a
longdesc.  This then makes the copyright notice sensical instead of
nonsensical.  The longdesc page also should contain the copyright
notice.

Also, you may want to consider using the HTML rel="copyright"
attribute on a <link> or an <a>, although this is not widely supported.
I'm not a lawyer, but I am curious if "I clearly encoded the legal
requirements within valid markup intended for that purpose -- it's
not MY fault his browser didn't display it" would stand up in
court.

--Kynn

Received on Wednesday, 16 January 2002 13:59:45 UTC