In a zoom #UX #A11y #UniversalDesign meetup this week we were discussing alt "tags" and descriptive text. I became anxious about how our industry is nearing 30 years and why alt - introduced in HTML 2.0 (1995) is still misunderstood. What do you think factors in to why this is?

Apr 24, 2021 路 5:17 AM UTC

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Replying to @mholzschlag
I guess there are not many stories for public reference that share how ALT tags saved an org or a community, and another set of stories for how missing ALT tags brought a business downfall.
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Folks in Web Standards and #a11y have made the business case repeatedly. Your use of the slang "ALT tag" is indicative of education fail in HTML as a language. It's an attribute. We don't learn syntax, nomenclature. We're not encouraged to teach actual languages. Techniques sell.
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Replying to @mholzschlag
Half-baked SEO theories in a market desperate for clicks
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HA! That's so true in some arenas. A lot of folks don't realize alt text is an SEO topic too, so that actually may be a blessing as it's not abused that way! :)
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Replying to @mholzschlag
Content management systems is one part. Some make the alt text option hidden or easily missed from the interaction to put the image on the page. I also see some developers look at HTML as something so minor that they don鈥檛 bother with anything that doesn鈥檛 break their code.
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I do think that's true of all tools and platforms that generate markup. It's a long-standing cultural divide, as is the bang-on point you've made about HTML's lack of acceptance as a formal language, CSS too. Ironically, HTML does not 'break' code. Error handling is very loose.
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I'd agree time is a factor. As is experience. There's so little user testing, people rely on audits now alone.