Re: advice on alt text for image maps

2014-01-04 18:42, Steve Faulkner wrote:
> For SR users the presence of the image is announced, so they would get 
> 'Map of Katoomba (Graphic)'...  Likewise for users with images 
> disabled, in most user agents an indication that an image is present, 
> is displayed.

There's a point in announcing the presence of an image, but I would 
still say that the prime objective of the alt attribute is to help 
people who cannot see the image at all. To them, telling them that there 
is an image is normally useless and disturbing. (Admittedly, they might 
sometimes use ask someone to describe the image or maybe some day use a 
device that allows tactile access to the image.)

When we expect an image to be accessible to the user, then it's not the 
alt attribute (replacement for the image) that should be rendered but a 
description or title of the image. This could mean the title attribute.

In the context being discussed, client-side image map, the alt 
attributes of the area elements are supposed to provide textual 
alternatives to the areas. This means that the user is to make a choice 
from a textual menu, not graphically. It would thus be distracting to 
announce the presence of a map or another image.

So I think that for the <img> of a client-side image map, the alt 
attribute should present, when needed, the context of the options to 
follow (the <area> elements' alt texts) as text, without any reference 
to the primary graphic alternative.

-- 
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Received on Tuesday, 7 January 2014 13:28:03 UTC