[thelist] Re: Accessibility and alt text - quality vs quantity

[Hassan Schroeder]

Toby Mills wrote:

> For my 2 pennies worth, I think that images that convey little or no
> information and who's sole purpose is to provide page formatting only need
> to be given alt=" ". They are a spacer therefore their description is a
> space. Annoyingly W3C states spacers should have alt's but does not say what
> they should be.

Eh? This seems pretty clear :-)

<http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/objects.html#adef-alt>

13.8 How to specify alternate text

<excerpt>
   Do not specify irrelevant alternate text when including images
   intended to format a page, for instance, alt="red ball" would be
   inappropriate for an image that adds a red ball for decorating a
   heading or paragraph. In such cases, the alternate text should
   be the empty string ("").
</excerpt>

-- 
Hassan Schroeder ----------------------------- hassan at webtuitive.com
Webtuitive Design ===  (+1) 408-938-0567   === http://webtuitive.com

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