Posted by dorayme on 06/02/07 04:33

In article
<1180687766.468491.79000@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
Lsimmons5 <info@lookit-up.com> wrote:

> it seems to me that if you have a row of buttons linking to different
> pages on a website, then every button and gif/jpeg should have its own
> separate description

No, this is not correct in all circumstances. 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. I remind you that in his example, the go buttons were just
devices that took you to answers to questions that were already
displayed in text on their left. Quite appropriate would be
something like "Find out" or "Find out the answer to the
question" or even, over verbosely, but with sure footedness,
"Click to see the answer to the question on your left" - (don't
even think of _really_ putting the latter!).

There is no short "alt text for dummies" book, no really simple
algorithm that will tell you what to say in alt text, it depends
on the context. To construct alt text requires you to be someone
who understands a little bit about other people, to be someone
with a little imagination and understanding about blind people,
about people with images turned off, about failure of images to
be delivered from servers and so on and to make alternative
provision for communication to cover such events in particular
contexts. Not someone who buries his head in rule books and
standards manuals alone.

Simply imagine how you can help someone who does not see the
image at all. You need to do something to help them in your
communications. If the picture is not a filler or a part of the
decoration especially, you need to convey something to replace
it, either its content or function.

As for what is or is not a decoration, this is not a question
that has a definite answer in all circumstances. You can put in
alt text for these if you wish, if only to explicitly convey that
it is merely part of the page's pretty look and therefore safely
to be ignored. But even here, the rule book nerds will get it
woodenly wrong. Some people who do not see the decorative parts
might nevertheless be interested from time to time (unlikely but
this kind of thing does happen) in decoration. A pure mission to
communicate all would demand you provide for even such unlikely
interest. But no one would blame you if you did not.. I will make
a comment about alt="" below

> It would appear from the comments received that W3C approval can still
> be obtained by simply choosing a non-descriptive ALT tag -- so what is
> the value of W3C approval in this instance? Or have I totally
> misunderstood the reasoning?

About this business of alt="" for some situations. You have a
choice. You can do this if there is a clause in your contract to
supply validated source. Or if you simply cannot bear the sight
of being rebuffed by a report from W3C. You can cheat and fudge
to get over this line if you want. And you better like the sight
of source strewn with dummy alts more than you like strictly
unvalidated code. Yes, you guessed it, you can also forget all
about putting in all that alt="" and what is the worst thing that
can happen as a result of just this? Nothing really of any
consequence. The real thing to be worried about is the true value
of those pics that cause this little dilemma for the neurotic
purist.

--
dorayme

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