Different Image Alt tags for the same image across site

[morestar]

I tend to disagree with this implementation of 'alt.' In its stripped down form, it is only placeholder text that describes the object destined for that place. The functional aspects belong to the title attribute, in my view, since it is implicitly a 'header' for the target action, a precursor to the branch. It does not describe 'what is' as much as 'what will be.'

So what would be your approach to assigning values to the alt and title attributes of say, the Logo image in a header block?

[deepsand]

Per w3.org, where needed, the alt attribute should be supplemented with the longdesc attribute.

See

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

Objects, Images, and Applets in HTML documents

Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

For a demo of a screen reader, see

Dojo Mail Demo: Archive Playback, Audio-Visual

Dojo Mail Demo: Archive Playback, Text

[weegillis]

So what would be your approach to assigning values to the alt and title attributes of say, the Logo image in a header block?

By my current way of thinking, it would not read, "Logo." Here I am forced into contradicting myself, since my answer goes directly in the direction deepsand earlier referred to, the action. For a logo in the header with a link pointing to the Home page, I'd opt for simply alt="Home" title="Home". But if there is no link, alt="".

There's the rub with alt and title, the gray area leaves so much room for conflicting interpretation. Even the browser makers can't agree. Where does that leave us?

Gaming the system by using the alt attribute for SEO is creating a new paradigm for usage, but I think we are all better off to stay as close to the W3C spec and the WCAG recommendation as possible. Use alt to describe the image (or cite the text in the image), longdesc to provide substantive information with direct reference to the image, and title to describe the action and / or target of an actionable object.

[morestar]

So in essence it would be right to format a linked img tag as follows?

<a href="thisplace.com">
   <img src="http://www.webproworld.com/images/mylogo.gif" alt="Logo" title="My Site Homepage" longdesc="Click here to get to my homepage" />
</a>

[weegillis]

The title attribute might better serve its purpose by being placed in the anchor tag, instead. In this case, I would set alt="".

"My Site Homepage" is a little more wordy than "Home", which most users are familiar with.

The value for longdesc must be a url as in, longdesc="mount-rushmore.html".

Addendum:
going in circles, again...
Related Post: http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster...tml#post445510

It would seem that my testing produced results that conclude the title attribute on the image is the one everyone will see. If it is on the anchor, then it has to be completely removed from the image.

For all parties concerned,

<a href="#" title="target or target page title"><img src="" alt="" title="Home" width="" height="" /></a>

everyone should see "Home" in the tool tip.

[deepsand]

Use alt to describe the image (or cite the text in the image), longdesc to provide substantive information with direct reference to the image, and title to describe the action and / or target of an actionable object.

A small adjustment, if you will.

For images which are active, the longdesc attribute should be used to convey information relating to the actionable nature of the image.

From the cited demo :

• alt = "Get mail button"
• longdesc = "click to download new mail"

[weegillis]

LINK: Objects, Images, and Applets in HTML documents

longdesc = uri [CT]
This attribute specifies a link to a long description of the image. This description should supplement the short description provided using the alt attribute. When the image has an associated image map, this attribute should provide information about the image map's contents. This is particularly important for server-side image maps. Since an IMG element may be within the content of an A element, the user agent's mechanism in the user interface for accessing the "longdesc" resource of the former must be different than the mechanism for accessing the href resource of the latter.

The resource at the other end of the link contains the substantive information, not the attribute.

Addendum:
Support of this attribute is spotty, and typically, the same url is used in an accompanying link, with link text "d." or "D."

[deepsand]

The point being what?