[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #9419: WordPress and image alt tags

[WordPress Trac]

#9419: WordPress and image alt tags
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 Reporter:  carolinem     |       Owner:                                                              
     Type:  defect (bug)  |      Status:  new                                                         
 Priority:  normal        |   Milestone:  Unassigned                                                  
Component:  Media         |     Version:  2.7.1                                                       
 Severity:  normal        |    Keywords:  section 508, accessibility, alternative text, alt tag, image
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 Hi WordPress gurus,

 I work for a state university that is considering WordPress as a CMS for
 our Web site. One thing that is very important to us as a state university
 is adhering to section 508 guidelines for Web accessibility, and we're
 running into a problem with WP and image alt tags.

 Currently, WordPress is set up such that the Title or Caption of an image
 is inserted as the alternative text. The Title is a required field, so
 technically, every image always has alternate text.

 This would be fine, except the title of the image defaults to the file
 name upon upload. The image file name is most often not meaningful (ie.
 "DSCN1899" vs. "This is a photo of Bob and Sally on their camping trip")
 and therefore not accessible.

 What we'd like to do is require users to re-enter the image title upon
 uploading it--in other words, we don't want the Title field to auto-fill
 with the image file name--so they are forced to consider using meaningful
 text to describe the image before saving it to the database.

 At present this would probably have to be done with a hack, but so far
 myself and another programmer have not been able to find the file or
 source code to do this. We've managed to customize the rest of the system
 to suit our needs, but this accessibility issue keeps tripping us up.

 It would be ideal if there were a required field called Alternative Text
 built in to the backend--something independent of the Title and Caption.

 Thanks for your time!

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/9419>
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