From A to A: Keywords of Markup

3. alt: Accessible Web Design or Token Gesture?

alt is an attribute for ; it is primarily used to assist the visually impaired. Assistive technology can read the text within alt attributes and thus give blind users access to page content and function. alt provides the same service for those using nongraphical browsers or who surf theWeb with graphics turned off.When a reader mouses over images, alt text appears as a tool tip. And finally, if for some reason, an image does not appear, alt text alerts the reader of what was supposed to appear in the space. In new media or net art, the alt attribute offers artists additional space to leave commentary or to extend their Web projects. Jodi.org, an experimental Net art site,famously displayed what appeared to be random blinking text.When the reader clicked “View Source,” however, the schematics for a hydrogen bomb were revealed by use of an altered alt tag. The Web comic Achewooduses alt attributes to provide a joke about the day’s strip or metacommentary about characters interacting in the strip. In these ways, alternative uses for alt complement its core function. My text-based screen reader did not recognize most buttons or icons. Instead of showing me a picture, it just said “image.” Instead of verbally indicatingwherealinkwouldtakeme,itjustsaid“link.”Iftherewasaseries of pictures and linkable words or icons, my computer would simply say, “[Image] [Image] [Image] [Link] [Link] [Link].” valerie lewis, “[image] [image] [image] [link] [link] [link]: inaccessible web design from the perspective of a blind librarian” This chapter explores alt="", or the alt attribute, used in HTML to provide textual alternatives for visual content. alt has long been a marker of the marginal, othered, and controversial on the Internet, starting with the“alt.*” Usenet hierarchy, in which such discussion groups as alt.drugs, alt.sex, and alt.rock-n-roll were created in the late 1980s (Bumgarner; • 3 3 a l t Accessible Web Design or Token Gesture? Colleen A. Reilly 3 Lee; Sexton). Although the alt-ed spaces of the alt.* hierarchy and alt attributes in HTML were developed ostensibly to provide a means for participation and access for other voices and users, in practical terms, the resulting alternate Usenet and Web site experiences created separate yet unequal situations, leaving the original Usenet hierarchy andWeb sites no more democratic or accessible than before. This chapter argues that focus on alt attributes and other code-based accommodations is misplaced, leading too often toWeb sites that are technically compliant but practically unusable. Concentrating on the minutiae of code often allows designers to absolve themselves from creating usable and satisfying experiences for all users, regardless of the means through which they access and interact with sites. That is not to say that alt attributes , inherently subordinate as image attributes in HTML (Slatin), can or should be ignored, but that the use of these and other code-based accommodation strategies needs to be part of a revisioned design process for maximum accessibility and usability (Pernice and Nielsen; Slatin and Rush). As this chapter demonstrates, numerous analyses of electronic resources reveal that the Web in general is far from being an inclusive and universally usable space (Davis, “Disenfranchising” and “Accessibility”; Hazard), just as our physical spaces often fall short of accessibility goals despite years of regulations, laws, and legal actions that resulted from the Americans with Disabilities Act. Truly revisioning the Web for maximum accessibility requires, in part, shifting our conception of disabilities from the medical model, concerned with assisting people with specific impairments with predetermined tasks by complying with a checklist of accommodations , to a social and civil rights model that situates all persons along a continuum of ability and highlights that marginalizing those less abled may mean someday marginalizing oneself (Burgdorf). alt: A Way In for Other Voices? References to alt in conjunction with the Internet may evoke the controversial newsgroup subhierarchies alt.sex.* and alt.drugs.*. Historically, the creation of the alt.* hierarchy stemmed from a dual desire to democratize the process for creating new newsgroups while simultaneously providing a space for undesirable topics that was distinguishable from the original seven (now eight) Usenet hierarchies. Although Usenet as a whole has been alt-ed by the visual Web and many predict its continued diminishment and eventual demise, in the 1980s and into the 1990s it was the 3 4 • C O L L E E N A . R E I L L Y central...