In such cases, the fact that the image is a navigation aid is likely to be of
Note that this chapter??™s section on images largely concerns itself with inline images??”
the addition of images to the content of a web page. For an overview of using images
as backgrounds, see the ???Web page backgrounds??? section of Chapter 2; for an
overview of working with images within web navigation and with links in general, see
much of Chapter 5.
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more significance than its visual appearance. For instance, many companies use logos as
links to a homepage??”in such cases, some designers would suggest using ???Company X
homepage??? for the alt text, as it??™s more useful than ???Company X.???
Alternatively, stick with using the alt attribute for describing the image, and add a title
attribute to the link, using that to describe the target. Depending on user settings, the
link??™s title attribute will be read out in the absence of any link text.
Null alt attributes for interface images
In some cases, images have no meaning at all (e.g., if they??™re a part of an interface), and
there is some debate regarding the best course of action with regard to such images??™ alt
values. Definitely never type something like spacer or interface element, otherwise
screen readers and text browsers will drive their users crazy relaying these values back to
them. Instead, it??™s recommended that you use a null alt attribute, which takes the form
alt="".
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