Full stops at the end of alternative text (alt attributes)
Hi
What is the best practice, to have a full stop at the end of the alternate text or not?
I believe it would be, but it does not seem common practice.
all the best
Dave
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I think I heard it said, here most likely, that screen readers round the sentence off better or more consistently, in terms of vocal pitch, when it ends in a full-stop/period.
All else being equal, that'd be enough reason for me to use them in alt/title/etc… text.
Last edited by Bill Posters on 04 Apr 2008 11:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
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HPR takes punctuation in 'ALT' text into account when voicing the contents, so it's likely that other readers will do so.
.
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Yeah i found it better to include them.
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It isn't often commented on, but I think it's good practice, and I can't see the harm.
Images are inline elements, so even theoretically, they should be read as part of sentences rather than having an automatic break at the end.
That has been born out with Jaws, I'm not sure about windows eyes or others. (Voiceover doesn't from memory, but I think it reads out 'image' at the end of the alt, rather than the beginning.)
-Alastair
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A simple test is to disable images in your browser. If all the text reads naturally, your punctuation is OK inside and outside of alt.
You should punctuate the alt exactly as the text in the image is punctuated. So if the image ends with a question mark or exclamation mark, that should also appear in the alt. If the image doesn't end with a full stop, the alt shouldn't end with a full stop.
If you use <img> for headings, you should still wrap it in a heading element. This gives devices the structure they need to understand the missing full stop.
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Agree with Ben. The alt is not like a title tag and will require punctuation unless you want it to run onto a sentence. This is how it is in JAWS and makes sense semantically._________________
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This is the problem AT devs have... If it simply doesn't get done, then should you do whats 'correct' or whats best in practice.
Thankfully i think there is something AT devs can do in this situation (I know I'll be looking in to it now). It should be possible to infer the semantic context from the containing node structure. And either pronounce as a new line or not appropriately (regardless of punctuation).
So in theory, if AT does what (i believe) is possible, it shouldn't matter.
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I use square brackets for alt text in this manner: alt="[descriptive text]" in order to differentiate it from page content in textual Browsers such as Lynx. Is this worthwhile or acceptable practice?
My audio screen reader is TextAloud which ignores all alt text -- do more sophisticated readers such as JAWS "speak" devices such as brackets/parentheses thereby making them an annoyance?
James
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| Quote: |
| I use square brackets for alt text in this manner: alt="[descriptive text]" in order to differentiate it from page content in textual Browsers such as Lynx. Is this worthwhile or acceptable practice? |
Do you know if text browsers don't already differentiate alt text from the surround content?
For me, it would depend on how the most popular AT UAs handle it.
If it means that screen readers get "square left bracket descriptive text square right bracket", then I'd consider that too obtrusive.
Are screen reader users more numerous than text browser users?
I don't know, but if they are, then I'd certainly be inclined not to place obstacles in their way for the sake of a smaller user group.
Even if text browser users outnumbered screen reader users, I'd posisbly still consider it too obtrusive an option.
I'd also be inclined to avoid this kind of solution as it feels like altering content for presentational effect, which feels wrong in principle.
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Firstly, I would like to thank everybody for their replies and messages.
I believe Cerbera's answer hits the mark. That the alternative text should be punctuated in a way that makes sense of the surrounding text.
Examples to cover some common situations:
I am <img src="tired-written-like-a-tired-writer-would.jpg" alt="tired" /> and will go to bed.
<img src="advert-max-cleaner.jpg" alt="Get Max. Are you clean enough?" />
<img src="holiday-snap.jpg" alt="A dark wood in daylight." /> The wood we visited was quiet and warm. We all liked it.
<img src="a-lovely-pic-that-will-make-my-page-look-better.jpg" alt="" />I'm a happy leprechaun and the world is my oyster.
all the best
Dave
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Dave Smith, those are excellent examples._________________
My CV type thing and my Life of Ben (Blog). Nigel Peck's Accessify Forum Requirements.
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Good examples there, for example this one:
| Dave Smith wrote: |
|
<img src="holiday-snap.jpg" alt="A dark wood in daylight." /> The wood we visited was quiet and warm. We all liked it. |
Would be read out as "image, A dark wood in daylight. The wood we visited was quiet and warm. We all liked it." in Jaws. (In voiceover, the 'image' is put after the alt.)
This one is fine, but if you were going for it from a full user-experience point of view, you might put something more in for it:
| Dave Smith wrote: |
| <img src="a-lovely-pic-that-will-make-my-page-look-better.jpg" alt="" />I'm a happy leprechaun and the world is my oyster. |
The two sides of the arguments are:
- You should take a strict, task-focused approach where extraneous things are not included, especially for a screen reader situation where it takes time to go through things that you can visually ignore.
- If you are including it visually, why would you not include it for all? If it has a purpose, shouldn't you try and represent that purpose for everyone?
Check WebAim's archive for the full stories, but I tend to swing between each approach depending on the site's aim.
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Thanks, especially for the Jaws and Voiceover insight, great.
The example with no alt text was there for those occasions where normally the purely decorative image would be displayed via css, but can't be done at that time for whatever reason.
So, in essence it was an image with no purpose. Therefore I'd agree with argument 2. I think ;)
all the best
Dave
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