[thelist] Accessibility Question

[martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com]

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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>My question is on the "proper" usage for graphical elements that have no
contextual meaning - things that are just there to make the page look
"pretty".

>Example: Say you have a graphical button (this graphic has some 'meaning'
and/or functional utility) and that you have sandwiched it between
left-hand and >right-hand 'pretty' graphics in order to make it more
prominent and easier to see on the page.  The left-hand and right-hand
graphics themselves don't have >any content or utility other than making
the 'useful' image stand out better.

Hm - the interesting thing in that case is that the graphic isn't
gratuitous. It fulfils a function.

If your question is "How do I use the content of the alt attribute as an
alternative to the graphic (ie to fulfil the same function)"

Now you *could* simply describe the graphical content (which is what you'd
probably end up doing for a *truly* gratuitous image), but I think a more
effective alternative would be to replace the emphasis function with some
text which does the same thing.

On the other hand, screenreaders tend to emphasise links, buttons and other
important stuff anyway, so do you need the extra emphasis? If you've got
*lots* of buttons on the page, and *this* one is the important one, then
yes, you probably do.

So maybe the answer is
<img src="foo_left.gif" alt="important button:" /><input type="submit" name
="submit" value="submit the form"/><img src="foo_right.gif" alt=" " />

or amend the button so that it's a graphic incorporating the highlights,
which ends up as
<input type="image" alt="Important button: submit the form" src
="highlighted_button.gif"  name="submit" value="submit the form" />
Some interesting info on this btw:
http://www.htmlhelp.com/feature/art3c.htm

Cheers
Martin

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