Sent by The Moose on 29 November 2003 22:10
> I read it, you made a fair point. Please be aware though to flag this up
> properly, we have a lot of trouble with wrong alt tags out there, mainly
> as people THINK it is a tooltip, as IE displays it as one.
True, people do so in their mass. That doesn't apply to me, though.
> You are wrong in seeing the cutting of some browsers as a tradeof, and a
> reason for alt tags to be short.
When I spoke of tradeoff, I had CSS Generated Content in mind. There is no
tradeoff to watch out for with this set of CSS tools.
> You should keep them short as they are being read out in screenreaders,
> and too long sentences are useless.
Right. This is a valid reason for brevity, but, as I argued, not the only
one.
> Mozilla does it the right way - if the image is not available it
> displays the alt text as a text.
I know of one underappreciated Norsk browser that does so too.
> Wrong visual displays of alt texts are a browser problem, and as you
> state below this is not for us to fix.
Yes. I admit so. Still, given the desired brevity of ALT, it is best for a
caption extracted with CSS. See below.
> I like the idea, I still think you shouldn't use alt for the sole
> reason that right wording for alt titles and longdesc are an art in
> itself and are brutally mistreated.
It wouldn't be useful to repeat my message to Ian, so I will tell you what
task I had before me as a CSS-y moose. ALT was a must, TITLE was a bonus.
I added the ALT. Now, the whole point was to perform a Pareto improvement
experiment: use CSS to recycle information from markup, and enhance the
visual display, i.e. give some users a visual bonus without hurting
anyone.
As a CSS designer, you have the following choices for img:hover::after,
img::after
A. content: attr(alt);
B. content: attr(title);
C. content: "Caption text here directly";
What would be optimal to do? All of the above don't violate any
principles. Yet some methods are more efficient than others.
C: It is inefficient and artificial. It does not recycle the markup and,
to boot, what would the Greenpeace think of me.
B. This requires me to add a title to the markup. Given what I want to do,
the title must have been a two-word sequence. In fact, it would be a
duplicate of ALT, and not a good use of a title attribute. Out it goes
thus.
A. I have a winner here. I add a succinct description to the markup as
ALT, and recycle it for my space-constrained caption. ALT is read to the
non-sighted users. Sighted users have no need to use the title, given that
the text is displayed to them and positioned over the image as a caption.
I recycle my markup. I'm environment-friendly. I have minimal markup. I
have minimal CSS. I add functionality that wasn't there before without
hurting anyone. I make sure the display is attractive visually.
Everyone wins. And why? Because of Generated Content, the unloved, often
despised and misunderstood child of the CSS Specification. I will be the
loving father to Generated Content if no one else is willing to...
> far too many people simply add something in alt and title to make bobby
> shut up rather than thinking of what people without vision >really need.
True. But, dear Chris, are you really speaking to me, or to the wider
audience? :)
Thank you and everyone else for the comments. Commentary such as yours and
Ian's make me more precise and strict in my thinking, although I do not
always agree with your arguments. Danke schoen,
Wojtek
--
-------------------------
Book Quote of the Week: "His mother said she wondered sometimes if
everyone had dropped small pieces of their sanity here and there, lost
them so that the whole world had gone mad and things had fallen asunder. "
~ COLUM McCANN
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