[thelist] Re: <spacer>

Andrew McKiernan andrew at kephra.com.au
Fri May 31 04:52:01 CDT 2002


Dear Evolters,

>> screwing-up of text-based browsers (I've observed that those who are
>> most likely to use the transparent GIF hack are the ones who are also
>
> but that's a whole different story... those are the same folks who
> leave alt atributes out of *all* their images, so spacer.gif or not,
> the entire page is usually pretty bad...  i don't equate poor coding
> practices with qualification for use of an element...

I'd have to say that putting ALT tags on a spacer image is definitely
NOT the best thing to do as far as Accessibility goes. In the example
of someone with a visual impairment using a text-reader such as JAWS
they get something like the following:

"LINK: Next Page, spacer dot gif, LINK: Index, spacer dot gif, LINK:
About Us, spacer dot gif, LINK: Home, spacer dot gif"

Now how annoying would that be to listen to on every web page you
visited? Spacer gifs are invisible to the sighted for a reason,
putting ALT tags on one actually makes it VISIBLE to a blind person.

Its a simple thing to use ALT tags on your images and I wish more
designers/developers would do it, but it is a simpler thing to just
leave them off the spacer gifs and possibly gain an extra "A" on your
w3.org Accessibility Rating :)

Cheers,
Andrew McKiernan

KEPHRA DESIGN
PO Box 31
Toongabbie
NSW 2146
AUSTRALIA
mailto:design at kephra.com.au




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