Quiz 1.1.9: TITLES everywhere?
The previous quiz question asked about supplementing ALT text with TITLE text, and how it might affect assistive technology. As always, we find variations in how assistive technology handles the various combinations. I’ll leave the recap for later. Now, we’ll turn to a more comprehensive question and test case about TITLE text. As Joe Clark rightly pointed out, the previous test case was too simple. OK, Let’s try a more complete test. TITLE text can be applied to almost any HTML element, so that’s what I’ve done.
The Titles Everywhere test case has TITLE text applied to every element. I’ve used almost all the elements, even those which are containers for others. A TITLE on an UL? What good is that? I don’t know, but the specs allow it. It’s interesting to see what appears on hover for each of these, and it might be interesting to see what assistive technology does with them. Try the test case and report any interesting findings.
Since every quiz needs a question…
Q. For what elements do you normally use TITLE text?
- A usually only images
- B images and … itemize
October 24th, 2005 at 7:31 am
B - images, links, form controls, abbr, dfn … wherever it’s necessary to describe something in more text than can comfortably or coherently fit in the underyling element (ALT text, link text, label text …etc)
What I *try* to do is write TITLE text so that it makes sense jointly and severaly -so it makes sense as a standalone item read out of context, but also so that it sits perfectly with the surrounding text as though it were the text by default.
Here’s a simple example:
Visit the
home page
That’s the ideal anyway - I confess that it’s rare to get it exactly right, and I’ll err on the side of self-contained rather than contextually-replaceable!
October 24th, 2005 at 12:20 pm
I will echo brothercake on this one. “B” for me too. I try to use title in such a way that it makes sense to do so. They keyword is try. My methods are constantly being redefined as I learn more and more and hopefully improve as a result.
Lately I try not to be redundant of text content. In brothercake’s example above that is a bit of the case, so I am trying to not do that as often, whereas I might be more inclined to do something like this example (as used on my portfolio site):
Accessibility
I would do this to better clarify what the single word “Accessibility” means in the context in which it’s used. “Home” on the other hand has such a universal understanding it may be redundant to title it. It may be err, on the side of caution albeit.
I’m just trying to be more careful about the usage is all.
January 8th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Title tags everywhere???? Horror!!! Using:
ZoomText Xtra Level 2 (speech) - V8.11 in MS IE v6.02.
Straight document reading, no problem (the titles did not read aloud.
Line reading (by hovering mouse over each line or element was impossible. the title tag cut in after two words, and the line couldn’t be read.
Tabbing to links, both link and title attribute were read aloud, which is only a benefit if the title provides additional information, and doesn’t just repeat link text.
Great test, it’ll be interesting to see what the consensus view is.
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:36 am
Question: Is there a default order to be read?
Just wondering in assistive tools if their is a default setting that the the alt would be read before the title? Or is it just which one comes first in the code? In the case of text links the link would always be read first followed by the title then?
I havde also tried to make links and titles blend together into a coherent sentance… but never really stopped to ask if their is a set order to what is read first.
September 18th, 2006 at 10:32 am
I use a “less is more” approach and rarely use @title. I don’t want to make the page overly verbose for those using titles, and I want the content to be clear and simple for those not using titles - all of which contributes to a preference for text over @title. That’s my philosophy.