RE: ALT and TITLE Clarification

<JT>Comments below.</JT>

Jim
 
Accessibility Consulting: http://jimthatcher.com/
512-306-0931

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Ridpath [mailto:chris.ridpath@utoronto.ca] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 10:54 AM
To: John M Slatin; Andrew Kirkpatrick
Cc: Jim Thatcher; WAI WCAG List; geoff_freed@wgbh.org
Subject: Re: ALT and TITLE Clarification

Thanks for your comments. Listed below are the HTML tests that relate to our
discussions:

IMG element (not used as an anchor)
A1) Alt text must be the empty string ("") if image is decorative.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/tests/test16.html 
<JT>You confuse the situation by using alt with "&" and ";" which should be
discouraged. Use alt="big space" instead.</JT>

A3) Alt text must contain any text in the image unless the text is
decorative or redundant
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/tests/test11.html
<JT>I am really worried about the wording of this requirement and test.
Sometimes the text on the image is inadequate as discussed in item 6 in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gawds_discuss/message/2208. For this
particular test, alt="W3C Working Draft logo" is wrong in my opinion, it
should be alt="W3C Working Draft" which is the text in the image.</JT>

IMG element (used within an anchor)
B1) Alt text must be the empty string ("") if image is decorative.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/tests/test16.html <JT>Same comment as A1
above. But more importantly, the test relates to image within an anchor. IT
IS NOT IN AN ANCHOR. </JT>

B3) Alt text must contain any text in the image unless the text is
decorative or redundant.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/tests/test11.html. <JT>See comments on A3
above. And like B1 above this is not an example of IMG in Anchor!</JT>

INPUT element (with TYPE of "image")
C1) Alt text must identify the purpose or function of the image
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/tests/test59.html <JT>The correctness of
this test depends on what the image really is. This is true for several of
these.<JT>

AREA element
1) Alt text must identify the purpose or function of the image.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/tests/test65.html <JT>Since there is no
image, can't be sure.<JT>

2) Alt text must contain any text in the image unless the text is
decorative.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/tests/test194.html <JT>Good example (test).
You really can't tell in the test above (D1).</JT> 

Is this getting closer to your view of Alt text?

Cheers,
Chris

Received on Tuesday, 18 January 2005 02:16:01 UTC