- From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com>
- Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:00:09 +0100
- To: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- CC: Steven Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>, HTMLWG WG <public-html@w3.org>, W3C WAI-XTECH <wai-xtech@w3.org>
On 17/08/2009 09:42, Maciej Stachowiak wrote: > Would it be appropriate, in light of this, to add a user agent > requirement that an img with empty alt should not be mapped to > accessibility APIs at all? Given the variety of authoring practice around "alt", I don't think that would be safe. In situations like: <a href="#"><img src="delete.png" alt=""></a> It's useful to AT for the "img" to be exposed and to be able to access "src" attributes for the purpose of providing a substitute for proper alternative text. http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-USERAGENT/guidelines.html#tech-missing-alt More tendentiously, perhaps, in situations like: <p>As you can see from the chart below, sales increased in 2008:</p> <img alt="" src="chart.png"> Even if users can't consume the chart themselves, it's useful to users to be able to download or hotlink that referenced chart in a collaborative environment (e.g. a corporate wiki). By contrast: <img alt="" src="bullet.png"> really is purely decorative; in a collaborative environment that seems likely to be generated by authoring software. -- Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Received on Monday, 17 August 2009 09:00:56 UTC