On Wednesday, December 08, 2004 8:14 PM, Andreas Boehmer wrote: > "Mark and his cat sitting happily by the sea" gives me > the information I want. It explains the image quite well and > even though I can see the image straight infront of me it is > still useful for me to know the title. It tells me: this is > Mark and his cat. The name of the cat doesn't seem to be > important, nor the name of the sea. > > "Photo taken in Sydney on the 12th March 2004" on the other hand is > information I would rather put into the content of the site, as it is > describing the image, but it is not really the "title" of the > image. But that's just me and other people might do it differently.
And this is exactly, in my opinion, where the crux of the matter lies. *You* have made the decision as to what *you* think should be "advisory" content and placed in the title attribute of the image. *You* have also decided what should go in the content. That is, you've decided that "Photo taken in Sydney on the 12th March 2004" is the information that everyone should get because it is in plain view in the content. That doesn't help the person that is looking to determine what is actually in the picture -- they would prefer to read "Mark and his cat sitting happily by the sea" plainly in the content. So, what does the user want? In this case, I'd argue strongly for the lower tech approach and leaving the title attribute as title="" on the image or not adding it all, and the following, plainly in the content: "Mark and his cat sitting happily by the sea. Photo taken in Sydney on the 12th March 2004" What is critical and what is "extra" is determined by context. In general, the lower tech the approach, the more accessible it is. If it is in the content, everyone gets what they need, instead of having to rely on a tooltip which may or may not appear for the information. The title attribute is just one way of hiding what might (notice I said might) be better placed in the actual content itself... http://www.wats.ca/articles/hiddeninformation/63 As always, my opinion... Best regards, Derek. -- Derek Featherstone [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 613.599.9784; toll-free: 1.866.932.4878 (North America) Web Development: http://www.furtherahead.com Web Accessibility: http://www.wats.ca Personal: http://www.boxofchocolates.ca ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
