[uf-discuss] RFC: Using <img>'s alt attribute for Microformats

[Charles Iliya Krempeaux]

Hello,

On 12/15/05, Tantek Çelik <tantek at cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> On 12/15/05 8:16 AM, "Scott Reynen" <scott at randomchaos.com> wrote:
>
> > Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but it doesn't seem to me that using
> > alt for machine data follows the humans first principle
>
> The idea is to use the alt for the human readable text version of what is in
> the image, sorry I wasn't clear about that.
>
> > because
> > imageless humans are reading alt tags.
>
> Right.
>
> > As a human, I'd hate to be
> > reading something like this in a screen reader:
> >
> > <img class="bday" src="today.png" alt="20051215T080000Z" />
>
> Indeed.
>
> > And my first inclination would be to give imageless humans something
> > more readable by putting the machine data in the title attribute
> > instead, e.g.:
> >
> > <img class="bday" src="today.png" alt="December 15, 2005"
> > title="20051215T080000Z" />
> >
> > This is sending three different types of data to three different
> > types of readers.
>
> AFAIK this is the first we have discussed using the <img> tag to convey
> three pieces of information like that.
>
> > src is for imaged humans, alt is for imageless
> > humans, and title is for machines.  I understand the drawback of
> > further complication, but the alternative seems to require authors to
> > choose between usability and microformats.
>
> Here is my question:
>
> Have you seen any examples on the Web where people are publishing date-time
> information as an image?

>From usability point of view, if is sometimes betters to use images to
convey information (when you can),  So,.... this isn't a published
date-time, but how about a progress bar:

    <img src="progress-bar" alt="38% done (you stil have a ways to
go)" title="0.38" />

Using the "alt" and "title" would both be very useful.  You see these
in the wild all the time.


See ya

--
    Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc.

    charles @ reptile.ca
    supercanadian @ gmail.com

    developer weblog: http://ChangeLog.ca/
___________________________________________________________________________
 Never forget where you came from