Not putting alt tags on things that are actually important to conveying the
message is a very bad thing (Trademark, patent pending). It means people
don't know what is there. Some browsers will try to guess, but it is a pretty
third-rate solution when the author could often have done a first-rate job.
Where the image is not doing anything except taking space, I would advise
people to put alt="". This is becuase browsers aren't sure whether they need
to try and repair images or not based on any good criteria - either they will
add hints for all images, or just images that are used for links (problem if
there is an image that conveys information but isn't a link), or will not try
to do anything. So if you do this well-made but basic browsers won't put
anything like "foo.gif" or "none" all over the page where it is unnecessary.
(Thanks for taking time to make stuff accessible - it is important to lots of
people who might not seem to need it as well as people who do)
cheers
Charles McCN
On Sat, 8 Sep 2001, Karl Dahlke wrote:
> I don't use alt tags in my web pages.
I agree with Andor.
If the image is just for pretty, don't bother.
But if it's a clickable icon, a link or submit button,
put an alt= description in.
If you don't, my browser is a little smarter than lynx.
It looks at the file name you are linking to and shows me the tail of that.
If an image links to this.that.com/foo/bar/shopping.html,
then I'll read {shopping}
I won't even know it was an image,
but I'll realize there is a link there, and I have a good idea what it's for.
Course this strategy doesn't always help.
Sometimes the linked file ends in index.html,
and then all I get is {index}
Maybe in this case I should back up and present the directory name??
Well it wouldn't be necessary if everyone used alt= on linking images.
Thanks for taking the time to make your site accessible to all.
We do appreciate it.
Karl
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