When travelling I use my Blackberry to browse the web in a text-only mode. Text-only allows me to read traditional web pages such as cnn.com without worrying about download times. One side effect is that I see all the ALT tags used for images. With my ‘text-colored’ glasses on I see things a bit differently, and sometimes notice some strange quirks.

For example on cnnsi.com the primary navigation is image based, so all the ALTs are the titles of the sections, i.e. NFL, NCAA FOOTBALL, etc. For the ALT versions all the words are in capital letters, except ‘Racing’ and for a while ‘Olympics’. At first you would think that they would capitalize all the acronyms, but other headings such as ‘TENNIS’ and ‘GOLF’ are in all caps.

One of the worst examples of ALT usage is on Velonews. Looking at the page you notice a number of banner ads. Rather than using the name of the product or a supplied message, all the ALTs say ‘Click Here!’ So on the Blackberry screen it is somewhat funny to see a string of ‘Click Here!’, actually 12 before I get to any content.

When I help clients design sites we pay careful attention to the ALT tages used on images. ALTs influence search engine optimization, help internal search tools and are necessary for Section 508 compliance.