Comments on: Accessible Rails Apps – Images and Alternative Text http://www.napcsweb.com/blog/2009/07/03/accessible-rails-apps-images-and-alternative-text/ professional web development and consulting Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:10:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Brian http://www.napcsweb.com/blog/2009/07/03/accessible-rails-apps-images-and-alternative-text/comment-page-1/#comment-25775 Brian Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:23:17 +0000 http://www.napcsweb.com/blog/2009/07/03/accessible-rails-apps-images-and-alternative-text/#comment-25775 @Henrik N: I assume you're referring to advice like <a href="http://universalusability.com/access_by_design/images/irrelevant.html" rel="nofollow">this</a>. I think that article explains it quite well. It's important to make a distinction between "valid" and "accessible" though. My advice though, is to keep decorative images out of the code altogether and insert it with CSS. Decoration is the stylesheet's job. Images in the markup should be content, and should thus have ALT text that's descriptive. @Henrik N:

I assume you’re referring to advice like this. I think that article explains it quite well. It’s important to make a distinction between “valid” and “accessible” though.

My advice though, is to keep decorative images out of the code altogether and insert it with CSS. Decoration is the stylesheet’s job. Images in the markup should be content, and should thus have ALT text that’s descriptive.

]]> By: Henrik N http://www.napcsweb.com/blog/2009/07/03/accessible-rails-apps-images-and-alternative-text/comment-page-1/#comment-25769 Henrik N Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:41:51 +0000 http://www.napcsweb.com/blog/2009/07/03/accessible-rails-apps-images-and-alternative-text/#comment-25769 And worth mentioning: it's perfectly valid, and often a good idea, to set the alt text to the empty string. This is especially true for pure decorational images. And worth mentioning: it’s perfectly valid, and often a good idea, to set the alt text to the empty string. This is especially true for pure decorational images.

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