Re: img alt text, links and titles

you are absolutely correct.  as alt text the word image and words like
it that "describe" rather than convey the inmage in alternative form
such as text or audio if it were renderable as alt, serve no acceptable
purpose.  As a blind person using a screen reader some 14 hours a day
with a large majority of that time taken looking at web pages I have
found that if you can put the alt text into a sentence that discusses
the page as a sort of summary and have it have meaning that would be
readily apparant from looking at the page with eyes, it should be
correct.  It should not make you say well, I already know that is an
image or so it's a logo.  We are talking here about some cludges of alt
text to sute a potential desirability of placing expanded information
about the image on the page but it is still a hack at best to use any
words that are descriptive rather than annotative as alt text.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Audrey J. Gorman" <agorman@megsinet.net>
To: "'David Poehlman'" <poehlman1@home.com>; <kynn-eda@idyllmtn.com>
Cc: <kynn-eda@idyllmtn.com>; "Ineke van der Maat" <inekemaa@xs4all.nl>;
"Charles F. Munat" <chas@munat.com>; "Charles McCathieNevile"
<charles@w3.org>; <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 5:36 PM
Subject: RE: img alt text, links and titles


The word "image" does not convey anything about the intellectual content
of
the graphic thing that sits there.  In other words, if you can't see the
image because of blindness or older hardware or software, "image" tells
you
nothing useful.

Audrey Gorman
Access for All
agorman@megsinet.net

-----Original Message-----
From: David Poehlman [SMTP:poehlman1@home.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 11:55 AM
To: kynn-eda@idyllmtn.com
Cc: kynn-eda@idyllmtn.com; Ineke van der Maat; Charles F. Munat; Charles
McCathieNevile; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: img alt text, links and titles

we're getting a bit off topic here so back to the context of alt text
for an image, the words that are nouns for the things that they are
naming have no place.

----- Original Message -----
From: <kynn-eda@idyllmtn.com>
To: "David Poehlman" <poehlman1@home.com>
Cc: <kynn-eda@idyllmtn.com>; "Ineke van der Maat" <inekemaa@xs4all.nl>;
"Charles F. Munat" <chas@munat.com>; "Charles McCathieNevile"
<charles@w3.org>; <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 11:54 AM
Subject: Re: img alt text, links and titles


David Poehlman wrote:
> let's put this another way.  an alternative is an alternative
> representatation.  the word image does not stand for anything and you
> must have written this particular speck that you point to because it
> isn't anywhere else.

Why do you say the word "image" does not stand for anything?  How
exactly are you able to say this with such certainty in all situations
which may possibly arise?

--Kynn

Received on Thursday, 17 January 2002 18:24:59 UTC