Simon Willison’s Weblog

Not trying to be negative or demeaning, but they dropped the ball on this one. So much potential for an organization like this, yet I don't think they utilized all of their resources or put the effort into it that would have made there site top notch.

Scrivs - 4th December 2003 03:06 - #

With all that being said I really hope the redesign contest gives the site the look that it seems these people deserve. Wasn't trying to be negative or anything.

Scrivs - 4th December 2003 03:18 - #

I liked your piece. (I spotted three typos: therefor for therefore, existant for existent, attri`ute for attribute.) The article was nicely laid-out and well put. Presumably, they intend to have a few short pieces like that - sounds like a good idea

I've never thought much about charts and graphs, as I've never used images of those. I suppose one problem here is that "alt" text used over-enthusiastically could become repetitive: one illustrates a description of some complex relation with a chart and then more-or-less repeats the decription as "alt" text. This occurs because here the image is itself an alternative, so there would be a kind of recursive effect, if one isn't careful.

Michael - 4th December 2003 10:56 - #

I think Michael has a point there: we use graphs to represent complex relations that are more succintly communicated using graphics; so using a descriptive ALT text can be a repetitive, time-intensive or, at worst, a futile effort. The key factor in deciding whether it's worth it would be the intended audience of the page. If it's a personal site that only a few of your friends read regularly, it is OK to skimp on the alt text. If you work for the government, or a museum, a facility that is frequented by sight-impaired people, or you can't guarantee that the graphic will exist later on in the life of the page, it's a good idea to craft an ALT text that will sufficiently replace the image. This is all IMHO, of course.

And if it's a very complex graph keep in mind the LONGDESC attribute, which can be used on images, frames, etc. I'm not clear on browser support for LONGDESC, except that Lynx displays the alternate text and not the long description.

Micah - 4th December 2003 12:32 - #

Thanks, Micah. Thinking about it again, I guess the root of problem may be that there can't really be a clear-cut distinction between what is "alternative" and what "amplifies". So if I give a description of something and also illustrate that with a graphic, maybe some people look at one, some at the other, and some at both. But, if I have got that description there - and sometimes I won't have - why do I also want an extended description of the image that itself stands in for it?

I think Zeldman gives a good example for "alt" text for photos in his access slides. In fact, the whole presentation is good stuff.

Michael - 4th December 2003 14:37 - #

See this entry on the possible downsides of GAWDS: http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/our_thoughts/oh_g awds.php

Brian Casey - 4th December 2003 17:20 - #

It's important when composing an ALT text to consider the context of the graphic. For example, a few months ago Hixie gave a markup quiz that asked, among other questions, what would be the proper ALT text for a picture of a wind-blown tree in a weather report. I answered that it would be "Wind-blown tree", but came to realize (when he posted the answers) that it would be more appropriate as "Windy weather today" because that is the message that this image was trying to communicate. If you give a full description in prose of a subsequent graph, it is not necessary to write such a comprehensive ALT text for that graphic. In fact, if you think that there is nothign left to communicate -- that the graphic is just gratuitous eye-candy -- you can even leave the ALT text blank.

I browse the web mostly in lynx (I stay in the console to keep me from random pointless web-surfing; obviously, this is not working). So the Zeldman tutorial was all text to me, although knowing Zeldman I'm sure it's presented very well. The examples he gives are solid, but I think that he could refine the ALT texts that he actually uses for the graphics in his tutorial. For example, I'm guessing that the "slide" that says something about ignoring section 508 if the client says so has an image of Puff Daddy on it, because I see a single line with the two words "Puff Daddy" on it. I don't think this conveys the message that Zeldman is trying to get across, and I would suggest something like "Celebrity clients may feel that ignoring accesibility is OK." Either that, or maybe what he calls the null alt, alt="".

Micah - 4th December 2003 23:03 - #

I really don't think as it stands we currently have the tools necessary for alting graphs. It's just too much to express. Maybe longdesc could do it, if that worked in any browser, ever.

I think it'll be a lot more interesting come CSS3, when we can replace the actual content of an element. Imagine you have an ided table, with all the data in the graph. You then import a specific stylesheet for that page that replaces the data in the table with the data presented in the graph image. Of course we probably won't be able to rely on this for years, and when we do, some moronic screenreader designer will make one that treats the replaced item as an image, instead of as the markup it was replacing. Sigh.

Lach - 5th December 2003 00:45 - #

Many graphs exist to illustrate a point - for example, if your web traffic has doubled over the past two months you might use a graph to illustrate that information. In that case, writing alt text isn't that hard - just summarise the trend you are trying to highlight (with "My web traffic has doubled over the past two months" for example). Things only get really difficult when you're displaying a graph just to visualise a whole bunch of raw information rather than to illustrate a trend you have already obbserved.

Simon Willison - 5th December 2003 03:52 - #

Funny, I did something exactly like that just the other day.

Micah - 5th December 2003 04:32 - #

Micah said:

For example, I'm guessing that the "slide" that says something about ignoring section 508 if the client says so has an image of Puff Daddy on it, because I see a single line with the two words "Puff Daddy" on it.

I wouldn't know: I hadn't known that there was a celebrity using that name. It's a young man in a pub, smoking and looking a bit sulky. He's puffing on his fag. I don't read an anti-smoking message, but that he is too casual. I think he is Mr. Casual Web Designer.

But describing that image in full labours the point: the picture really only establishes a mood. The text says all that's needed.

I think the whole thing is context-dependent If you had a webpage about, say, Gibbons and Section 2.7 was a discussion of their feeding patterns, then you might add a pie-chart to present those statistics visually. The only meaningful alternative to that graphic would then be the description you already gave. There, if you add "title" text at all, it should refer you back:

... alt="Gibbon feeding patterns" title="graphical representation of statistics given in Section 2.7"

More generally, I think the problem is that people think they can serve accessibility by becoming more HTML-element-focused. So if the image element allows for alt, title, longdesc they think you should use them. Better to be user-focused than element-focused.

Michael - 5th December 2003 10:51 - #