RE: Anchor images - pixel sized & alt text

The code is fine as it is. The text inside the <a> element is specifying the link destination, so the image just needs a null 'alt' attribute, which it has.

If there was no text, the image would need a descriptive 'alt' attribute.

Steve Green

From: PJ Mancuso [mailto:pmancuso@uoguelph.ca]
Sent: 10 July 2012 18:44
To: Philippe Vayssière
Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Anchor images - pixel sized & alt text

Here is a snippet of one of them, it does appear to be a link:

<span class="d_nb_ni">
<a href="/d2l/lp/ouHome/defaultHome.d2l">
<img src="/d2l/img/lp/pixel.gif" class="d_nb_s" alt="" />
<span>My Home</span>
</a>
</span>

But like I said the image is 1px, should alt be filled or should the programmers figure out a diff way for styling content?

Thanks
-PJ

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 12:31 PM, Philippe Vayssière <philippe@alsacreations.fr<mailto:philippe@alsacreations.fr>> wrote:
Hi,

Could you please provide the HTML code of the enclosing link?
Is this a named anchor :
    <a name="name_attribute_deprecated_but_still_used"
id="name_attribute_deprecated_but_still_used"><img src="path/image.png"
alt=""></a>
or a link to some page :
    <a href="something.php"><img src="path/image.png" alt=""></a>

For example, the Accessiweb checklist, which is based on WCAG 2.0,
excludes "a" elements without an "href" attribute from the links that
should have text (or alternative text) as content :
http://www.braillenet.org/accessibilite/referentiel-aw21-en/index.php#crit-6-6
(you can follow links to the glossary for more details).


Regards,
Ph. Vayssière


Le 10/07/2012 17:39, PJ Mancuso a écrit :
> Hi everyone,
>
> Wanted to say thanks for the previous help received and that I have
> been making headway auditing the webpages that have been tasked to me.
> Question about anchor images and alt text. I received this as some of
> the known problems:
>
> *Success Criteria 1.1.1 Non-text Content (A)*
>
> Check 7: Image used as anchor is missing valid Alt text.
> <http://achecker.ca/checker/suggestion.php?id=7>
>
> *Repair: *Add Alt text that identifies the purpose or function of the
> image.
>
> /Line 84, Column 13/:
>
> <img src="/jjj/img/lp/pixel.gif" class="d_nb_s" alt="" />
>
> The image itself is 1px and is used as an anchor for a link I believe.
> In this situation is alt text really useful? I have read somewhere
> that in this particular situation anchor images shouldn't even be
> used. What exactly is the proper procedure here?
>
>
> Any explanation would be greatly appreciated so I can pass on to the
> programmers. I hope this wasn't too confusing.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> -PJ
>