Re: what do you think about this site?

"Safalra" <usenet@safalra.com> wrote in message
news:1124121088.246795.66980@z14g2000cwz.googlegro ups.com
> 1) Your logo at the top has no alt-text. In this case it should be
> blank because it would be duplicating the title and slogan at the top
> of the page, so just set alt="". Also it should probably be a PNG
> rather than a GIF as it's suffering from some horrible dithering.

The purpose of alt text is not so that a page will validate.

The purpose of alt text is to identify graphics that people either can't
see or aren't downloading, so why wouldn't you use the alt text to
identify the image as the site logo?
--
Red

Safalra wrote

> The purpose of a logo is to identify the organisation it represents.

Yes but crucially, the purpose of a logo is to *visually* identify the
organisation it represents. Nothing else.

As you go some way towards saying, you cannot represent a purely visual
sensation with words. To try to do so is ludicrous. Therefore the best
you can do is tell the user that there is an image there, and give a
short desription of it.

> In text this is the same as just stating the name of the organisation,

It's not. It's anything but the same. You don't get the mood, the
feel, the ethos, the subliminal influences. A crap logo identifies the
organisation, but also tells you (amongst other things) that they may
not be a serious outfit. Just as a quality logo has the opposite
effect. Text can't do that.

Again, better to give the user the organisation name, and tell them
there's a logo there. Sighted people get the organisation name, and can
choose to view the logo. Blind people still get the organisation name.
What possible drawback can there be to stating that there's a logo
there??

When I surf with images turned off, I find the alt text "picture of..."
very helpful. It tells me first of all that there is an image there,
and it helps me to know if I should choose to view it.

If the alt text says "organisation name logo", I might choose to view it
because I am interested in logos.

If the alt-text does not tell me it's a picture (or logo) then the page
does not read well. I see little snippets of text, but completely out
of sync with the surrounding text. But "picture of..." or "...logo"
tells me all I need to know, and does not get confused with surrounding
text.

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com

Charles Sweeney wrote:
> Text cannot represent images, so it is pointless to try to
> do so. This is why one should instead desribe the offering.
> Alternatively, if an image is meaningless the user agent should ignore
> it if it doesn't have alt text, without needing to use the silly alt="".

If user-agents ignored images without alt-text, how would you know that
you weren't missing something important because the site designer was
ignorant of alt-text? You say elsewhere that you want the alt-text of a
logo to make it clear that it's a logo so you can choose whether to
view the image, but the fact is that most websites don't bother with
alt-text at all, so you'd never know there was an image there.

With alt="" the user-agent knows that the author has decided that the
image has no content value (that is, is decorative), whereas with a
lack of alt-text there is no way of telling whether the image is
important or not, so the user needs to know (otherwise they might not
realise that, for example, the reason they can't find a navigation
system is because it consists of images without alt-text; if the
user-agent pointed out the lack of alt-text, the user would quickly
guess that the navigation system is entirely image-based).

--
Safalra (Stephen Morley)
http://www.safalra.com/hypertext/usability/

Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com> wrote:

> GreyWyvern wrote
>
>> The obvious alt text
>> for a logo would be the name of the company/organization it
>> represents.
>
> The obvious alt text would be "company name logo".

No. You're hung up on the mechanics of how browsers put together pages,
with all the various pieces of technology, when instead you should be
considering them part of a document structure which works regardless if
certain parts are disabled.

If someone is browsing with images off, it's pretty certain they are doing
so for a reason. "company name logo" tells them they are *missing*
something, while using the name of the company tells them *what* they are
missing. Think about it: what is the purpose of a company logo? Most
often it is to identify the company. How does "company name logo"
identify the company?

Is all your alt text just a teaser to get people with images turned off to
load them to see what they're missing? Don't you think that's a little
presumptuous? What if your visitors are blind?

Grey

--
The technical axiom that nothing is impossible sinisterly implies the
pitfall corollary that nothing is ridiculous.
- http://www.greywyvern.com/webslavent?msg=149 - Presto the Puffin!

GreyWyvern wrote

> Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com> wrote:
>
>> GreyWyvern wrote
>>
>>> The obvious alt text
>>> for a logo would be the name of the company/organization it
>>> represents.
>>
>> The obvious alt text would be "company name logo".
>
> No. You're hung up on the mechanics of how browsers put together
> pages, with all the various pieces of technology, when instead you
> should be considering them part of a document structure which works
> regardless if certain parts are disabled.

Not at all. I simply don't see how "Joe Bloggs logo" is a disservice to
a visitor.

> If someone is browsing with images off, it's pretty certain they are
> doing so for a reason. "company name logo" tells them they are
> *missing* something, while using the name of the company tells them
> *what* they are missing.

Not sure if you have misunderstood me. By "company name logo" I mean
(as in the example above) "Joe Bloggs logo", where "Joe Bloggs" is the
name of the company.

So "Joe Bloggs logo", tells the user that the comapny name is "Joe
Bloggs", and that there is a logo there too, which they can choose to
view or ignore.

> Think about it: what is the purpose of a
> company logo? Most often it is to identify the company. How does
> "company name logo" identify the company?

This was discussed in another reply. A logo is a visual identifier.
You *cannot* represent an image with words. This is not up for debate.

> Is all your alt text just a teaser to get people with images turned
> off to load them to see what they're missing? Don't you think that's
> a little presumptuous? What if your visitors are blind?

Not at all. It tells them there is an image there, and gives them a
brief description of it. If visitors are blind, they still get the same
words that a person trying to do the impossible (representing an image
with words) would use, but preceded with "Picture of..."

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com

Charles Sweeney wrote:
> GreyWyvern wrote
> > Think about it: what is the purpose of a
> > company logo? Most often it is to identify the company. How does
> > "company name logo" identify the company?
>
> This was discussed in another reply. A logo is a visual identifier.
> You *cannot* represent an image with words. This is not up for debate.

How come you get to decide what's up for debate? Seriously though, the
subtle features of images that lead to you saying that they cannot be
represented in words also cannot be *reliably* represented in images.
One person may think an animated logo looks stylish and shows the
company has put effort into their logo design, whereas another person
might think it looks cheap and irritating. Even if you argue that
there's a universal notion of 'amateur-looking' and
'professional-looking', this would not *only* show in an organisation's
logo but *also* in the text of their website. I don't really see how
anything can be reliably conveyed in an logo without it also being
conveyed in the general text that surrounds it.

--
Safalra (Stephen Morley)
http://www.safalra.com/hypertext/usability/

And lo, Charles Sweeney didst speak in alt.www.webmaster,alt.html:

> GreyWyvern wrote
>
>> Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com> wrote:
>>
>>> GreyWyvern wrote
>>>
>>>> The obvious alt text
>>>> for a logo would be the name of the company/organization it
>>>> represents.
>>>
>>> The obvious alt text would be "company name logo".
>>
>> No. You're hung up on the mechanics of how browsers put together
>> pages, with all the various pieces of technology, when instead you
>> should be considering them part of a document structure which works
>> regardless if certain parts are disabled.
>
> Not at all. I simply don't see how "Joe Bloggs logo" is a disservice to
> a visitor.

It isn't. Yet the "logo" tacked onto the end is quite meaningless,
revealing more about what's *missing* from the document than the
information the text conveys.

>> If someone is browsing with images off, it's pretty certain they are
>> doing so for a reason. "company name logo" tells them they are
>> *missing* something, while using the name of the company tells them
>> *what* they are missing.
>
> Not sure if you have misunderstood me. By "company name logo" I mean
> (as in the example above) "Joe Bloggs logo", where "Joe Bloggs" is the
> name of the company.

I understood you perfectly, and my reasoning still stands.

>> Think about it: what is the purpose of a
>> company logo? Most often it is to identify the company. How does
>> "company name logo" identify the company?
>
> This was discussed in another reply. A logo is a visual identifier.
> You *cannot* represent an image with words. This is not up for debate.

So why are you trying? Alt text does not try to "represent" the image.
It is meant *only* to convey the same basic information as the image which
could not be displayed. In the case of a logo, this information is brand
identification, not logo identification.

>> Is all your alt text just a teaser to get people with images turned
>> off to load them to see what they're missing? Don't you think that's
>> a little presumptuous? What if your visitors are blind?
>
> Not at all. It tells them there is an image there,

To what end? "An image was supposed to be here, but you can't see it."
This is certainly need-to-know information, mm-hmm.

> and gives them a
> brief description of it.

You want alt-text to be a description, when it is actually a fallback
replacement. In many cases, especially with photographs, a "brief"
description is OK alt-text. What I do not agree with is letting the user
*know* that the text has replaced an image in cases where the image is
*not* a photograph. This is information that just isn't necessary to
understand a document whether images are enabled or disabled.

> If visitors are blind, they still get the same
> words that a person trying to do the impossible (representing an image
> with words) would use, but preceded with "Picture of..."

Unless your document *cannot* be understood without an element which has
been disabled by the user, explicitly notifying them that your document is
now broken makes very little sense; and makes the webmaster look like an
amateur.

Grey

--
The technical axiom that nothing is impossible sinisterly implies the
pitfall corollory that nothing is ridiculous.
- http://www.greywyvern.com/orca#ring - Orca Ringmaker: Host a webring
from your website!