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Old 01-05-2009, 05:14 PM
getmea getmea is offline
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Default Re: Repetition in Alt Attributes

Quote:
Originally Posted by dmwcons View Post
Thanks Subhzash. I absolutely agree it could be. But what I want to learn is whether people think there would be a penalty attached to the scheme I propose.

Regards, David.
There shouldn't be a penalty because it shouldn't be written as you suggested!

You are totally missing the point about ALT tags. You are only thinking about the indexing features for Google; it provides a valuable way for the Visually imparied to "see" your page with their software. As a person hits the Tab key, the local software reads the HTML to the user.

Let's suppose you code it your way. What the software will "tell" the visually handicapped (as he/she is tabbing around your page) is: "Bullet"..."Bullet"..."Bullet"..."Bullet" instead of "Home"..."News"..."Editorial"..."About"... So I ask you, is your website ADA compliant? I think not.

To improve on subhzash's response, I would write the alt (or better yet, the title tag for FF compatibility) tags as:

<li><img src="menu.gif" alt="Home page link/button" /><a href="index.htm" title="Home">Home</a></li>
<li><img src="menu.gif" alt="News page link/button" /><a href="news.htm" title="News">News</a></li>

If you don't comply, you will lose a piece of the pie. You may also get sued. I am not visually impaired; but I have a friend who is. If he visits a website where it is not ADA compliant, he "X"'s out.

Last edited by getmea; 01-05-2009 at 05:25 PM.
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