[1] For further discussion of authoring style, I earnestly commend to you the Style Guide for Online Hypertext at the W3C, with particular reference to Don't format for a particular browser and Avoid talking about the Mechanics.
After all, the author of a book does not normally try to tell the reader how to read it, what light to read it in, how to use the fold-out insert etc. unless there were some very special reason to do so. You'd assume they already understand how to do that, or have the freedom to choose for themselves, wouldn't you? So, I would ask you to kindly not patronise your readers by implying that they don't know how to use their own WWW browser. They probably know how to use their browser much better than you do, and if you try to tell them how to use your browser, it's quite possible that you will confuse them. Thanks!
My chief aim has been to bring the subject into the open; to
provoke further reasoned discussion; and to address the many
incomprehensible ALT texts that I am seeing on the WWW.
In doing so, I hope also to demonstrate that the often repeated
claim that "authoring also for text-only users would cost us an
unreasonable additional effort which we cannot afford" is a
mistake: this claim seems plausible only if you don't know
what it is that you are trying to say to your readers, and have
confused the presentation details (which in any case cannot be
closely controlled by writing HTML for the WWW) with
the content of your message.
[2]
I can't resist mentioning here that the HTML3.0 draft
recognized the shortcomings of the IMG tag by
introducing a new and much more versatile tag, FIG,
which is supported by one or two advanced browsers, though by
none of the mass-market ones known to me;
it now seems that these ideas will be re-worked under a
different name.
However, within the scope of this note I am specifically dealing with
the appropriate use of the IMG tag.
One of the most important readers of your WWW page is the indexing robot: it is, in effect, blind, and cannot understand your images. The ALT text is an excellent way to help the robot and ensure that your page will be indexed appropriately. (Some authors seem to prefer spending lots of effort on composing META tags for the indexers - which is a reasonable enough idea in itself - but that produces no visible spinoff for your text-mode human readers, whereas effort spent on your ALT texts produces benefits for both kinds of "reader".) With 30Mio+ URLs on the WWW, you really don't stand much chance of an interested reader finding your page by their own unaided efforts: everything you can do to get it indexed properly is giving you an extra chance to reach readers who are specifically interested in what you have to offer them. These are your "quality" visitors, each one far more valuable to you than an army of readers who might stumble onto your URL while "surfing".
Increasingly, these digital cellphones are coming equipped with a digital data socket, to which a more elaborate display, for example a laptop or palmtop, can be connected, either for display of SMS messages or for a fullscale dialup digital data path to an Internet provider etc. At least one example of the former is described on the WWW, this is no futuristic fantasy. As for the latter, you could take a look at BT's GSM advertising. However, the data rate that is available by SMS is very low, and the rate available by dialup is also quite limited, compared with a wire telephone, due to the broadcast nature of the transmission path. Within the defined transmission standards, it is inconceivable that any large scale browsing of images is going to be achieved with an access time that would be acceptable for routine browsing.
2. In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Book is described as a handy device having a display about four inches square, capable of displaying any one of a million pages of information. It's clear that The Book is conceived as a self-contained system, as would be appropriate for the intergalactic traveller. Here in the real world, we have palmtops (e.g the Psion, the Newton) that are getting better all the time; and we have digital cellphones, that are getting hooked up to palmtops. For some time already, it's no problem to run a VT100 emulation on the Psion, call up a host computer and run Lynx, but there will be nicer ways for a Psion to access the WWW before long, I am confident of that. Hints are dropped, for example, from time to time on the comp.sys.psion.misc usenet group. See, for example, Steve Litchfield's writeup. Soon, there will be something available rather like The Book, but giving access to not just a million pages of information stored within it, but the 30million-plus (and still counting) documents on the WWW.
This will only be practical for text, and simple graphics. Those humungous images will definitely not be retrieved routinely: this is a fundamental limitation of the transmission path, not just a minor technical obstacle to be overcome.
3. The Speaking Machine - not only for the blind. Busy executives might have a speaking machine read out stuff to them while they are driving between business meetings. Also dial-a-web-page telephone services etc.
4. Some sceptics on the WWW usenet groups, when an unusual or futuristic presentation device is mooted, tend to ask "does such a device exist today?" and appear to believe that if it doesn't, or even if it does exist but they don't think a sufficient percentage of readers are using it, then it proves to their satisfaction that there is no need "to author for it". This shows a very narrow minded and short sighted view, unworthy of the high principles of the WWW. Why "author for" a restricted audience, when HTML (at least where textual material is concerned) enables you to "author for" all readers? The documents that I wrote in HTML half a decade ago when I was starting to take an interest in the WWW are still competently browsed by any of the current browsers, and I presume will be just as accessible in another decade's time, if the information that they contain still has any relevance. Maybe they look a little plain when seen against today's glitzy offerings, but I wrote them for their content, not for their cosmetic appearance: they look better on a better browser, i.e one that presents standard HTML documents well (unlike the mass market browsers, which need helping every step of the way with vendor-defined presentation controls to be provided by the author). I can't understand why some people are determined to build-in obsolescence to their documents by ignoring even the obvious developments, let alone the non-obvious ones. By marking up the document as to its content and logical structure, instead of getting obsessed about its cosmetic presentation - which even today's experience shows it's impossible to guarantee - the document can be made accessible to a wide range of presentation devices and situations, both current and future.
Even 0.01% of internet users is still a significant number of individuals, especially if they just happened to be the people who might be interested in your product: how can you be sure they're not?
The contents of this article were originally published at http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/%7Eflavell/alt/alt-more.html, where they are currently maintained.
Original materials © Copyright 1994, 1995, 1996 A.J.Flavell & Glasgow University
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