Re: ALT content question

  From: Daniel Dardailler <danield@w3.org>
  Subject: ALT content question
  
  We've been discussing internally whether or not the W3C logo
  (http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Icons/WWW/w3c_home.gif), as used in
  http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/People/danield/w3c/wai/slide2.htm, for
  example, should be marked with ALT text "W3C", or "W3C logo".
  
They are both inappropriate.  The ALT text should be

	W3C Projects Status

or more briefly

	Projects Status

To explain:
	
This particular link is a bottom-of-page synonym for the "top"
link.  It is offering you the function "move to the root within
[some scope]" The appropriate ALT text is the external title of
[some scope].

The "home" connotation of the icon is, as it is used in this
context, more important than the "W3C" branding.  But you don't
want to label this link just "home."  It is better, since there
are multiple values of "home" depending on the degree of locality
or globality of focus, to explicitly identify the scope that
this link takes you "home" within.

The anchor content should advise you what is at the far end of the
link.  

If this image were not the content of a link, but used to frame
the signature section of the page, the ALT text is better "W3C"
and not "W3C logo" if the browser is Lynx.  In Netscape with the
graphics turned off, I might prefer "W3C logo."  In speech, ...?

--
Al Gilman

Received on Monday, 9 June 1997 08:56:49 UTC