Peter Ottery
Sun, 15 Aug 2004 18:22:03 -0700
>> James wrote:
>> I have my minimum font-size set to 12px, so
>> websites can't set text I can't read (or see for that
>> matter) - like 6px :D. I think this is rendering your (ed: smh.com.au) plain text headers
>> to be 12px - and they are appearing over the image headers on the
>> smh.com.au home page ... making both types of headers unreadable.
GOLD medal to James in the advanced font setting relay! :D
you are the 1st person *ever* to pick that up.
seriously tho, cheers for that, a valid point indeed, and noted.
>> James then wrote:
>> I've done this on one of our new websites (text changed to make more
>> sense in this context), and it works quite well with images turned off
>> or on. Or am I missing the point of image replacement techniques?
>> <h1><a href="" title="link to the sport page">
>> <img src="" height="60" width="470" alt="sport" />
>> </a></h1>
nah i dont think yr missing the point. looks like a solid method.
The major benefit for us at present for the method we used is the lower strain on the server. ie: having the image as a background image that is part of the "sprite" image and called once, used repeatedly for a bunch of other images, and eases the load on the servers a fair bit.
Can someone out there in accessibility guru land tell us if an image (only) used as a h1 heading is as good as regular text used as a h1 heading? ie: does the alt text on the image (in James' example above) become the defacto "heading" and get used in the methods the screenreaders use to scan headings on a page? At the WSG meet earlier in the year that David Woodbridge from the Royal Blind Society came to and demo'd that shortcut used that popped up a box with all the headings on the page listed... just wondering if an img's alt text would show up in that list - and other similar scenarios/readers...?
>> James wrote:
>> not sure how it works with search engines
i dont know if anyone would know for sure (other than the search engines themselves). Google reads alt text on images - but whether it finds that alt text within a h1 tag and then assumes that's the heading and applies the same "points" to it when the googlebot scans the page is another thing...
pete :)