|
  |
|
|
Alt tag
By Ashokrajan Balakrishnan of Metis Technologies Private Limited
What is alt tag?
HTML tag which provides alternative text when non-textual elements, practically images, cannot be displayed in the alt tag option.
Definition:
ALT Tags are usually removed from web pages, from the smallest personal pages to the largest web corporate sites. If it is properly used, ALT Tags can be quite useful. Besides other elements, ALT tags is
(a) to gives you the complete detail for an image or the destination of a hyperlinked image.
(b) to enables and improves the accessibility for users with various disabilities.
(c) to provide much-needed information for people who surf the Web with graphics turned off, and people who surf the Web with text-only browsers.
(d) to assist in navigation when a graphics-intensive site is being viewed over a slow connection, enabling site visitors to make navigation choices before graphics are fully rendered.
Meaning:
Alt tag means Alternate text tag.
The description about alt tag is given below:
The idea of alt is not new. though the very first implementations of the img tag lacked it, the alt attribute has been in HTML specifications since the first one, HTML version 2.0. It said that "HTML user agents may process the value of the ALT attribute as an alternative to processing the image resource indicated by the SRC attribute", and clarify this further by stating that the ALT attribute value is "text to use in place of the referenced image resource, it is due to processing constraints or user preference". And it gives a good example of alt attribute:
LT IMG SRC="rectangle.xbm" ALT="Warning:" GT users are very sure to read these instructions Carefully. Simplicity has its price. Since the alternate is written as an attribute value, it is restricted to plain text with no HTML markup. We will get back to this issue in section making text and image alternatively. The major confusion: from alternative to description. However, there is quite some confusion around the very idea of alt texts. Although the attribute name is an abbreviation of "alternate", reflecting well the intended meaning and use, even in official documents like later HTML specifications and the WAI guidelines there are also state¬ments about alt texts as "text descriptions" of images. In particular, although WCAG 1.0 refers to "text equivalents" and contains a very good definition of "equivalent" in this context, and generally promotes the idea of alternative rather than descriptive texts, it still has expressions like "For simple content, a text equivalent may need only describe the function or purpose of content. For complex content such as (charts, graphs, etc.), the text equivalent may be longer and include lot of descriptive information." To see how careless the formulation is, consider a spacer image. An attribute like alt="spacer" would be a description of the image, and alt="a 20 pixels wide horizontal spacer image" would be even more descriptive; yet, both texts are pointless as substitutes for the image, and the more descriptive the description is, the more disturbing it is as an alternate text.
|
|
 |
|
PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
No reactions yet.
Please login or sign up to rate this intel.
Please login or sign up to add a comment.
The copyright for this content entitled "Alt tag" has been specified by the contributor as:
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Details 
This content may be copied, distributed, and modified, as long as a) the original author is acknowledged with a link back to the content page, and b) if the work is modified, the result is distributed with this same license.
If you use this content according to the license specified, you must link to the following URL:
http://ashokb23.qondio.com/
|
|
|
This intel was contributed by Ashokrajan
Ashokrajan
|
May, 2012
2008
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2009
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2010
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2011
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2012
January, February, March, April, May
|
|
Not a member yet?
Qondio is a powerful network for making it online. If you have a website to
promote, we can help.
Sign up and get in on the action.
|
|
Welcome to Qondio! Discover the awesome power this network can deliver by going to our About page. Or you could skip straight to the Sign Up form.
|
|
