Re: 'alt' was: SVGAccessibilityWG: has-been-clicked or a:visited

Jonathan Chetwynd wrote:
> We are not alone, alt and title have been used within html for some 
> time, and whilst there are spec definitions* the practicality is that 
> most implementors haven't got a clue.

Yes, but that's not because some users (HTML authors) or some browsers 
misuse an attribute than this usage must necessarily be adopted.
I believe on the contrary that authors must be educated, and pages like 
http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/alt/alt-text.html are good for this.

> It's worth realising just how simple things have to be, if we would like 
> them to be useful.

? I don't understand "how simple things have to be".

> in my own words: title is used to describe the destination of a link, 
> alt is used to describe an image.
> in this way you can see that where a graphic is also a link, both alt 
> and title are 'essential' for accessibility.

I don't agree here. A clickable image has the <a> tag with title to 
describe the destination and the <img> (or other) tag with alt and title 
with their own uses. Now, we are missing a good UA implementation to 
manage both titles. Currently, Mozilla only display the img one.

> Please note well, that while alt is  used for missing or broken links to 
> images, it is also used by viewers such as lynx that cannot display images.

That's what I wrote: "alt is here to provide a short description, in 
case of text-only browsers (or editors showing raw HTML...)[...]", 
perhaps in a poor English.

alt is here to provide an alternative replacement of the image, so it 
does describe the image. title is here, in HTML at least, to provide 
tooltip text, probably to legend it or to add additional information.

<img src="PhiLhoSig.png" alt="Drawn 'PhiLho' signature"
title="The PhiLho signature as used in drawings"/>

<a href="EnchantedForest.html"
title="A digest of The Enchanted Forest novel">
<img src="../images/forest.gif" alt="Painting of Enchanted Forest"
title="Enchanted Forest painted by M.C. Youknowwho, circa 1881"/>
</a>

My examples may not be the best, showing that coming up with good 
content for these attributes is not so easy :-)

-- 
Philippe Lhoste
--  (near) Paris -- France
--  Professional programmer and amateur artist
--  http://Phi.Lho.free.fr
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --

Received on Thursday, 11 November 2004 08:54:20 UTC