RE: Anchor images - pixel sized & alt text

That's not the only tool that gives a false positive for that type of link construction. We have similar links containing both images and text on our website and a potential client expressed concern that our site failed with whatever automated tool they were using. It left me wondering how many clients we may have lost because tools falsely reported that our website was non-compliant.

Steve

From: PJ Mancuso [mailto:pmancuso@uoguelph.ca]
Sent: 10 July 2012 20:02
To: Philippe Vayssière; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org; akirkpat@adobe.com
Subject: Re: Anchor images - pixel sized & alt text

Alright, thanks everyone. achecker.ca<http://achecker.ca> was indicating these as "known" problems so I wanted to verify. Thanks again

(Sorry for the double send Steve)
-PJ

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Steve Green <steve.green@testpartners.co.uk<mailto:steve.green@testpartners.co.uk>> wrote:
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<mailto:pmancuso@uoguelph.ca>]
Sent: 10 July 2012 18:44

To: Philippe Vayssière
Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org<mailto: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
>