The Underscore Archives

On 10/08/07, Anthony George <anthony.george at teamrubber.com> wrote:
> I wasn't making a specific point to you or about any particular site
> (it makes sense the way you've done it for optics.org)

Fair enough - I didn't mean to sound defensive ;)

> I was simply questioning the idea that there was one way that should
> be used all the time on all sites.

Also fair.

> A website with a logo of a tree with lemur in it  that also wants the
> name of the company in the header, will need different technique than
> a logo that is just the name of the company.

Will it, though?

> The tree and lemur will need to be described

Will they? Isn't the non-visual (ie textual) brand still just the name
of the company and possibly their tagline? If I've gone to a company's
home page and I'm using (say) Jaws, will I care that there's a logo
that's a tree and a lemur? No - I'll just want to know the name of the
company. I'm sorry, but the rest is just decoration as far as AT is
concerned: alt="" material; anything else is an extreme annoyance for
the AT user.

I can see three scenarios:

1. Logo is entirely pictorial (no name or strapline; probably quite
rare I'd have thought - even sighted users want to know your company
name): alt="Company name, possibly with tagline".
2. Logo is partly pictorial but with the company name, all in the same
image: as #1
3. Logo is partly pictorial but with a separate image for the
name/tagline: picture has alt="", name/tag has alt="Name, tag"

> and this would probably be best done as an image
> using alt tags etc... (possibly inside the appropriate H tag)

As I said, alt="". For a pictorial logo, it's pure decoration. An AT
user doesn't need to hear "This is the ACME Inc Logo", either. They
just need "ACME Inc, makers of fine widgets".

> and the company name may need marking up separately.  A logo which is just
> the name of the company might be best using IR.

IR or alt: the choice is about flexibility once you move what is
ultimately decoration into the presentation layer (CSS).

Interesting aside: Liam McGee of Accessibility firm Communis has
written a guest post on Steve Johnston's blog about sIFR and its
potential impact on Google rank:
http://www.johnston.co.uk/2007_08_01_blog-archive.html#2331819188890676368

Tim