RE: Macromedia not getting accessibility quite right...

At 01:01 PM 11/11/2002, Bob Regan wrote:
>So spacer images and images that require the use of the null or the empty 
>alt attribute do not fit the profile of the Contribute user. Folks who 
>design pages (in the Macromedia vision of the world) use Dreamweaver. 
>Folks who simply update or create content, use Contribute.

That's an unfortunate design choice.  I can think of many sites I've worked 
on where there are images that are swapped regularly (like promo images on 
a main page) but an ALT text would be inappropriate because the page copy 
already tells you what you would theoretically need to know in an ALT.

>The term description was intended to provide a less technical way of 
>understanding the term in the absence of training for those trying with 
>less of a technical background.

It's really misleading though, since often an "image description" is what's 
better suited for a TITLE attribute.  ALT is about the message the image 
delivers, but too often is written as a blow-by-blow description of what 
the image is.  This just reinforces that problem.

Bill Mason
Accessible Internet
w3c@accessibleinter.net
http://www.accessibleinter.net/

Received on Monday, 11 November 2002 16:42:35 UTC