Re: alt attribute comments?

On Sun, 23 Sep 2007 10:00:52 +0200, Steven Faulkner  
<faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
>> As for finding it necessary, I do think that would be one of the  
>> reasons.
>> Say you have 300 photos and you want to share them online as quickly as
>> possible and you want to pass machine checkable validation. What to do?
>> (Consider that most authors will take the easiest option and that the
>> easiest option might be bad for accessibility if alt= is mandated, etc.)
>
> I wonder at what level does it stop? If I have 100 or 50 0r 10 photos  
> that i want to share, is it OK then to not include the alt attribute?  
> Then if its OK  for 10 why not 1.

I would expect people who care enough to do it most of the time and people  
who don't to never get it right. As I mentioned in my post, I'm not really  
looking for a solution into the content producers side as it doesn't seem  
the solution will be coming from there.


> both options are bad for accessibility (either no alt attribute for any
> image or alt="" on an image that contains information not provided  
> elsewhere in associated text content).

The HTML5 draft does not allow no alt attribute for any image. It's  
actually a MUST level requirement to provide it for most and a SHOULD for  
images with critical content.


>> I'm not sure what other meaning the _user agent_ can extract from alt=""
>> than simply acting as if it was not there.
>
> This is the same as what AT UA's do for no alt attribute under most
> circumstances. As no useful info can be provided to the user unless  
> someone has provided that info in the first place.

This was in reply by the way to your comment on what alt="" means. My  
comment on that was that for the user agent it doesn't matter, and my post  
talked about the user agent.

Regarding no alt= attribute, that indeed seems to be case. Which is why we  
might want to try something else instead. On the other hand, going out  
 from the current state of the art of screen readers doesn't really help  
solving this problem I think. Dunno really.


-- 
Anne van Kesteren
<http://annevankesteren.nl/>
<http://www.opera.com/>

Received on Sunday, 23 September 2007 08:41:27 UTC