[thelist] correct use of alt and title attributes

[Stephen Rider]

On Sep 11, 2006, at 5:03 PM, Bob Meetin wrote:

> I am looking for a summary that describes the correct use of alt and
> title in relation to standards, accessibility and search engine
> optimization.

<tip type="ALT and TITLE attributes as tooltips" author="Stephen Rider">
Internet Explorer shows ALT attributes as "tooltip" popups by  
default.  Firefox and most other browsers (correctly, it seems) does  
not.

If you do *not* want browsers to show the popup, include an empty  
TITLE attribute as well, e.g.: <img src="emailbutton.gif" alt="email  
us" title="">

If you *do* want the tooltip to show up, or if you want it to be  
something different than the alt attribute, then specifically  
indicate such using the title, e.g.: <img src="emailbutton.gif"  
alt="email us" title="Send us an email">

In short: for consistency across browsers, include a TITLE attribute  
any time you use ALT, unless the ALT tag is empty (e.g. alt="").
</tip>