wsg  

Re: [WSG] Investigating the proposed alt attribute recommendations in HTML 5

Alastair Campbell
Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:33:42 -0700

Lachlan Huntwrote:
> the question that still remains is that if allowing the alt attribute to be
> omitted when users don't provide any good text isn't the right solution,
> then what is?  What should the spec recommend to use in these cases?

The problem is differentiating between ignorant and intentional lack
of text. At the moment a missing alt is generally an indicator of
ignorance (not knowing or caring to add alternative).
A null alt either means the author knew enough to not want to put an
alternative in (e.g. decorative/spacer image), or it was automatically
put in for them.

> What should an authoring tool (like Dreamweaver) insert by default when
> a user adds an image and immediately dismisses the alt text prompt?  (It
> currently omits the attribute unless the user explicitly selects
> "<empty>" or types in some text.)

I think that's been answered from an accessibility point of view:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-AUTOOLS/#check-no-default-alt

-Alastair


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