Re: Null alt tags for decorative images - Technique H67

Ramón Corominas wrote:
> And not all "decorative" images should be inserted via CSS. For example, if the image is a printer icon next to a "print" text, the code of the link could be:
> 
> <a href="..." title="Print this page">
> <img src="ico-print.png" alt="" /> Print
> </a>

One problem with this is that it is an abuse of links.  I'm not sure if 
that particular use has gained squatters' rights, but a link is a noun, 
whereas this is a verb, and a title is additional information about what 
the link leads to, not a description of what it does, and certainly not 
a "tooltip".

The button element was introduced in HTML 4 to cover this case, but, 
unfortunately was originally implemented in broken form by IE and had no 
fallback mechanism for older browsers.

I would suggest that, from the point of view of people with congitive 
disabilities, any button that is not a form component will cause 
difficulties.  One of the biggest problems for this class of user, 
including elderly first time users, is working out the design metaphor 
to be able to recognize the logical buttons.

-- 
David Woolley
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.

Received on Thursday, 3 November 2011 07:51:48 UTC