[thelist] Accessibility, alt, and title

Tom Dell'Aringa pixelmech at yahoo.com
Fri Apr 16 14:41:08 CDT 2004


--- David Dorward <evolt at david.us-lot.org> wrote:
> > You have this <a href="foo" title="Click Me!"><img ... alt="Man
> > laying on grass" /></a>
> 
> That sounds like rather bad alt text...

Not necessarily. Granted, I just threw that in there and didn't think
about it for the purposes of this email. This is a marketing page
pushing a service. The picture is of a man's torso relaxing on a
plush green lawn. On the photo is the service pitch. I suppose
something like "man relaxing on plush green lawn" would be
appropriate unless I misunderstand ALT text altogether. I've read
that article before.

> This is normal. The alt attribute is a _replacement_ for the image,
> not advisory information about it.

Yes, I'm aware of that, and I wanted to provide that information :)

> IE's rendering of it as a tooltip is either a bug or an
> accessibility feature depending on who you listen to.

Right - holy war #4,564

> That sounds like a job for the title attribute, which is there for
> advisory information.

Right, that's what I was pointing out...

> >  - like "click me"
> Bad idea. 

Okay, right - it was just an EXAMPLE - that's not the advisory text I
would put there.

> What's to stop you abusing alt and using title?

Nothing if I don't get a workaround ;)

> Anyway, I suspect the issue can be resolved by using alt correctly
> then using title on the _image_ (since title trumps alt for
tooltips 
> on images in MSIE)

Ah, exactly what I wanted. Not sure why I didn't try that - maybe was
thinking IMGs couldn't have titles. Works perfectly.

Thanks

Tom

=====
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