[thelist] OT-ish purely image based websites

[Dave Holloway]

Rebecca O'Connell wrote:

>That's it. That's all the content that shows up on the page. I looked at the
>source, and all of the images are alt="". I am astonsihed. I thought we'd
>moved past this. Especially major corporations who presumably hire
>professional web designers.
>  
>
>
So? Do all television programs have subtitles?
This may stir up a bit of a fuss with all the great believers of 
accessibility here but.. I think that in the case of websites, 
accessibility (namely alternative text) should be optional. Does this 
mean that audio tapes and CDs must also be distributed with text 
alternatives? Should every showing of a movie have subtitles pasted at 
the bottom?

I'm not saying accessible alternatives to websites is bad - far from it. 
I design every one of my sites now so that all the content is readable 
in a text browser.
All I'm saying is that it shouldn't be a necessity.

One may argue that not providing alt text may loose you potentially big 
clients... but surely that is the decision of the business? I don't know 
if any of you have noticed.. but most websites are almost completely 
inaccessible.. section 508 isn't exactly catching on in a big way.

But thats my opinion..

But... I'm still in favour of making accessible websites.. keep at it 
people!

Yours controversially,

Little Dave

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