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Posted by dorayme on 06/02/07 23:07
In article <tMk8i.172830$_i7.137462@reader1.news.saunalahti.fi>,
"Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi> wrote:
> Scripsit dorayme:
>
> > If, whether for
> > good reasons or bad, you have buttons that go to different pages
> > as exampled in cwdjrxyz's page, it is entirely appropriate to
> > have exactly the same alt text to help the user who sees no
> > image.
>
> No, it is not. It violates the basic principle that different links require
> different link texts. There are serious usability and accessibility reasons
> to this principle. When an image is a link, the alt text acts as the link
> text in essential ways.
>
First, it was suggested previously to me, at least by
implication, that there is some likelihood that someone would be
usefully looking at a list of links on a page divorced from the
context of that page. I agreed that to cover this unlikely
possibility I should not have used the words "entirely
appropriate". The words should have been weakened to "appropriate
enough". If I am beaten back further by further argument, I will
be happy enough because of its educative value.
I do not mean to be provocative when I say that there could be
situations where I would strengthen the words, not weaken them.
For example in a playful site that has prizes for guessing
answers and is so constructed as to mislead people for playful
reasons. Or even an educative site (either about html or not)
where the student is required to be tested in various ways.
The basic principle that you are upholding is a fine thing in the
way many principles in any field are. But they are not sacred
objects. They have a purpose. When that purpose is inappropriate,
it is often small mindedness to follow the rule. Yes, I do
understand that sometimes it is just simpler not to have to think
about things and just apply a useful principle everywhere to save
time and energy. But, while this is fine for oneself, it is
entirely a different matter when getting up to criticise someone
else for not following the rule in every circumstance.
I have always respected the way you often show how you see the
raison dΉκtre for the rules in web design (in good
communication). And I would bet quids that you would not stoop to
use communication standards purely for fashion or to seem correct.
In the particular page which obviously so infuriated you, I do
believe that the very existence of those buttons were the crime
for usability, adding unnecessary things. As you say in your
post:
> > The "go buttons" are just pointless and childish.
> > That's why there's no reasonable way to write alt texts
> > for them."
I was suggesting quite "good enough" in the circumstances. I was
also trying to be a bit nice to poor old cwdjrxyz as he was being
kicked in the gutter. I was passing by and even martians have
hearts you know!
I am not altogether sure of how to take the rest of your post,
whether they are meant in criticism or endorsement or
amplification? I saw little with which I would disagree and
indeed, they express views I have written on.
--
dorayme
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