At work, there's a campaign to make our sites more accessible.
The first step, using alt tags for images.
It's actually a really good idea, and fairly simple to do, but what you probably don't know is why.
Well thanks to a handy PDF created by the GUI folks that i sadly can't share with you, there are some easy rules in place, i'll summarize here:
Why
- Alt attributes provide text to display when an image is not available.
- Screen readers will ignore images with an empty alt attribute, but will speak the images URL if the attribute is missing. (Now imagine all those rounded corners and fiddly bits. Eek! –jr)
- The alt text describes the image accurately and succinctly. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but try to keep it under 125 characters.
- Try using CSS background images for decorative crap since those aren't picked up by readers
But, you know why i'm going through my site and adding alt tags to stuff? Because it gives me a chance to crack some really bad jokes.
Why not?
Heck, considering how miserable my artwork is, i figured i might as well be nice to the folks who have the benefit of not suffering from it.
Years ago, I suggested that Comixpedia move to mouseover alt tags for art credits when they have original art online. No idea if it was actually done, though.
People still visit sites through a browser?
Hang on, before you call me crazy. RSS aggregation is probably awesome for the vision impaired, because it strips most of the crap from the content of serial content (news, blogs, even email and calendar) and places it within a uniform interface.
Obviously that doesn't work for faaancy stuff like Y! Maps or Pipes, but most content is more happily digested in this standardized, soulless way. Even for us with vision.
Then you only have to alt-tag your content pictures with information, leaving everything else blank.
And finally a demographic that can't skip or adblock! They do, however, seem unable to punch the monkey even once and thus never qualify for the free iPod/HTDV/Hawaiian vacation.
More seriously, though, are there stats for the number of vision-impaired users? (~0.5% of US population, ~half over 65) How about iPhone users (~0.3% of US population, ~half still living with their mom) who have images turned off because they're not on a 3G network and cry every time they need to access the web outside of their home?
When I originally started with this new "web" thing for the internet, I browsed with images off, until finally the whole thing became completely unusable. I too would have appreciated sufficient tagging to have allowed that crazy dream to live on for a few more years.
Justin: Title tags aren't quite the same as an Alt tag. Title is a supplemental thing, and as I understand it, most screen readers will use that if no Alt tag is present. Title tags are also displayed as supplemental info for anyone else who's interested (e.g. when you hover over an image). Where things probably get annoying is where nothing is presented. h-t-t-p colon backslash backslash unitedheroes. Net slash art slash shocked. gif
maybe the Alt text tags for borders and stuff should say "You so fine". Because visually-impaired people would probably appreciate hearing that.
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One or the other blind person told me to add either blank labels to unimportant pics or descriptive text to more important ones, years and years ago.
I did. But then, I don't have all that many fiddly bits on my pages …