Re: Null alt tags for decorative images - Technique H67

Patrick H. Lauke wrote:

>> Often these are a very important part for the designer because they can
>> link the product with concepts in a way that would be considered
>> unethical in actual text or alt text.
> 
> We may be straying now from the topic of accessibility to that of 
> advertising standards...

I don't think that you can ignore that.  Images and styling allow 
messages to be put across that cannot honestly be put across in plain 
text, which means that the alt attribute for an image will often convey 
nothing like the real intent of the image.

The images are often stock images and the represent the image that the 
company would like to put across and may bear no relation to the 
reality.  Most modern PR material is about feeding back to the audience 
what they want to see, and images allow one to do that in a way that can 
be more economical with the truth than plain text, and that is why the 
examples of alt text end up being boring descriptions of the contents of 
the image, rather than the true message of the image.

-- 
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 Friday, 4 November 2011 09:31:54 UTC