"Exemplary" alt text: "Tim Berners-Lee smiling 2003-12-31: ..."

[Jukka K. Korpela]

No, I'm not making this up, this is what http://www.w3.org/ says when
accessed with a text browser, or in any decent browser in no-images
mode:

"Tim Berners-Lee smiling 2003-12-31: Buckingham Palace today announced
that Queen Elizabeth II will make Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director, a
Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE)."

Actually, I could see the point of title="Tim Berners-Lee smiling",
since it's not obvious to everyone who sees the image that it's a
smiling face, but alt="Tim Berners-Lee smiling" is of course nonsense.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Philipp Lenssen]

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

No, I'm not making this up, this is what http://www.w3.org/ says when
accessed with a text browser, or in any decent browser in no-images
mode:

"Tim Berners-Lee smiling 2003-12-31: Buckingham Palace today announced
that Queen Elizabeth II will make Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director, a
Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE)."

Actually, I could see the point of title="Tim Berners-Lee smiling",
since it's not obvious to everyone who sees the image that it's a
smiling face, but alt="Tim Berners-Lee smiling" is of course nonsense.

He's not really smiling on that picture, either. An empty alt-text
would have been better.

--
Google Blogoscoped
http://blog.outer-court.com

[Anne van Kesteren]

Philipp Lenssen wrote:

He's not really smiling on that picture, either. An empty alt-text
would have been better.

I think his name should be in there at least.

--
Anne van Kesteren
<http://www.annevankesteren.nl/>

[Philipp Lenssen]

Anne van Kesteren wrote:

Philipp Lenssen wrote:

He's not really smiling on that picture, either. An empty alt-text
would have been better.

I think his name should be in there at least.

That would be the title-attribute. The name "Tim Berners-Lee" already
appears in the heading of the article at the W3C. It doesn't add any
information and it doesn't help the reader much to mention the name
twice. In fact it might just be confusing. While a picture of Sir Tim
does add valuable alternative information (such as: what the guy looks
like -- this could be a more appropriate alt-text though, to describe
what Tim looks like -- then again it'd be confusing, too).

--
Google Blogoscoped
http://blog.outer-court.com

[Barry Pearson]

Philipp Lenssen wrote:

Anne van Kesteren wrote:

Philipp Lenssen wrote:

> He's not really smiling on that picture, either. An empty alt-text
> would have been better.

I think his name should be in there at least.

That would be the title-attribute. The name "Tim Berners-Lee" already
appears in the heading of the article at the W3C. It doesn't add any
information and it doesn't help the reader much to mention the name
twice. In fact it might just be confusing. While a picture of Sir Tim
does add valuable alternative information (such as: what the guy looks
like -- this could be a more appropriate alt-text though, to describe
what Tim looks like -- then again it'd be confusing, too).

Perhaps longdesc would be a better place to describe what he looks like?

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/
http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/
http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

[Harlan Messinger]

"Philipp Lenssen" <in**@outer-court.com> wrote in message
news:bt************@ID-203055.news.uni-berlin.de...

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

No, I'm not making this up, this is what http://www.w3.org/ says when
accessed with a text browser, or in any decent browser in no-images
mode:

"Tim Berners-Lee smiling 2003-12-31: Buckingham Palace today announced
that Queen Elizabeth II will make Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director, a
Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE)."

Actually, I could see the point of title="Tim Berners-Lee smiling",
since it's not obvious to everyone who sees the image that it's a
smiling face, but alt="Tim Berners-Lee smiling" is of course nonsense.

He's not really smiling on that picture, either. An empty alt-text
would have been better.

He's more clearly smiling in the article at
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5134...l?tag=nefd_top

[Stanimir Stamenkov]

Philipp Lenssen wrote:

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

No, I'm not making this up, this is what http://www.w3.org/ says when
accessed with a text browser, or in any decent browser in no-images
mode:

"Tim Berners-Lee smiling 2003-12-31: Buckingham Palace today announced
that Queen Elizabeth II will make Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director, a
Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE)."

Actually, I could see the point of title="Tim Berners-Lee smiling",
since it's not obvious to everyone who sees the image that it's a
smiling face, but alt="Tim Berners-Lee smiling" is of course nonsense.

He's not really smiling on that picture, either. An empty alt-text
would have been better.

I think that the 'alt' text should be "[ Tim Berners-Lee photo ]"
(or may be just the name?) since the picture carries only graphical
information with no distinct parts - it's a photo showing single
"item". So I think the alt text should be enclosed in [ ] to note
this is a distinct object and should include info (name or whatever,
but not empty) on the picture so text readers could download it for
preview in external application.

I agree with Barry Pearson which writes in another reply that the
'logndesc' would better describe what he/the photo looks like - "Tim
Berners-Lee smiling", though it is not necessary in this this case.
Including the name in the 'title' attribute is an optional extra,
too, but it could help graphical UA readers to get better that this
photo is of Time Berners-Lee.

--
Stanimir

[Andy Dingley]

On Fri, 2 Jan 2004 09:51:09 +0000 (UTC), "Jukka K. Korpela"
<jk******@cs.tut.fi> wrote:

No, I'm not making this up, this is what http://www.w3.org/ says

I think we've already worked out that TBL isn't actually the W3's
webmaster and that their own practice isn't an exemplar.

--
Smert' spamionam