Re: Empty alt tags

Petri Laatunen wrote:

> I just tested both alt="" and alt=" " with JAWS screen reader.
> Unfortunately alt="" doesn't work quite correctly: if alt is
> empty with even no space in quotes, JAWS tries to find title
> property and may even read the name of the image file!

I presume this happens only when the image is a link, that is, inside an <a
href> element. But does it happen when the <a href> element contains both
the image and some text?

In any case, it seems that the problem of reading images with alt="" can be
avoided by not making images links when there is a corresponding textual
link too.  After all, the only thing that such duplication serves is to
reinforce some people's tendency to click on anything to see whether it's a
link somewhere.

For image links without such duplication, the problem does not arise, since
the alt text can and should be descriptive of the meaning.

--
Jukka K. Korpela, erityisasiantuntija / senior adviser
TIEKE Tietoyhteiskunnan kehittämiskeskus ry
Finnish Information Society Development Centre
Salomonkatu 17 A, 10th floor, FIN-00100 HELSINKI, FINLAND
Phone: +358 9 4763 0397 Fax: +358 9 4763 0399
http://www.tieke.fi  jukka.korpela@tieke.fi

Received on Friday, 22 February 2002 04:16:08 UTC