There was some debate in last night’s IRC chat about trac ticket 26270 raised by @yaelkmiller. Her original point was that when adding images to pages and posts, the Alt text box should have more prominence than the Title box – the alt attribute being an important accessibility feature.
Personally, I think the idea is a good one, but discussion and comments by @helen also revealed some interesting behaviour when inserting images concerning what text ends up in the title attribute of the image, and what text ends up in the alt attribute.
I’ve done a series of tests using different use cases and they are presented in the tables below – including my expected results and the actual results.
Uploading images
| Test No. |
Use Case |
Graham’s Expected Result |
Actual Result in Page |
| 1 |
Upload image, add it to page with no change to Title box or Alt text box |
Title attribute set to image name minus suffix |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to image name minus suffix – ie what the Title box was set to |
| 2 |
Upload image, add it to page but change Title box, not Alt text box |
Title attribute set to amended value |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to amended Title box value |
| 3 |
Upload image, add it to page but change Alt text box, not Title box |
Title attribute set to image name minus suffix, alt attribute set to amended value |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to amended Alt text box value |
| 4 |
Upload image, add it to page but change both Alt text box and Title box |
Both title and alt attributes set to amended values |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to amended Alt text box value |
Using images from media library (previously uploaded) without amendment
| Test No. |
Use Case |
Graham’s Expected Result |
Actual Result in Page |
| 5 |
Add image from media library that has Title box set but not Alt text box |
Title attribute set but not alt |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Title box was before |
| 6 |
Add image from media library that has Alt text box set but not Title box |
Alt attribute set but not title |
Alt attribute set but not title |
| 7 |
Add image from media library that has both Title box and Alt text box set |
Both attrubutes set |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Alt text box was before |
| 8 |
Add image from media library that has neither Title box nor Alt text box set |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute empty |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute empty |
Using images from media library (previously uploaded) but making amendments
| Test No. |
Use Case |
Graham’s Expected Result |
Actual Result in Page |
| 9 |
Add image from media library, that has just Title box set, update Title box |
Title attribute set but not alt |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Title box was amended to |
| 10 |
Add image from media library, that has just Alt text box set, update Alt text box |
Alt attribute set but not title |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Alt text box was amended to |
| 11 |
Add image from media library, that has neither Title box set nor Alt text box set, update Title box |
Title attribute set but not alt |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Title box was amended to |
| 12 |
Add image from media library, that has neither Title box set nor Alt text box set, update Alt text box |
Alt attribute set, no title attribute |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Alt text box was amended to |
| 13 |
Add image from media library, that has both Title box and Alt text box set, update Alt text box |
Both attributes set |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Alt text box was amended to |
| 14 |
Add image from media library, that has both Title box and Alt text box set, update Title box |
Both attributes set |
Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Alt text box was originally set to |
Looking at the results
The first revealing thing about these tests is that my own view of how I thought WordPress worked is at odds with the actual results in most cases.
The second thing that’s become obvious is that it’s actually impossible to set the title attribute for an image whilst using the Add Media panel. The title attribute never appears in any of the results.
Actually the only way to set a title attribute image within pages and posts is to use the older image edit dialogue box once the image is placed within the page (or to manually update the HTML obviously).
I think the confusion comes from the labeling of the Title input field in the Add Media Panel. Helen refers to this in her comments on the trac ticket I believe. Maybe to avoid confusion this box should be given another label – ‘Image name’ maybe. I confess that I hadn’t noticed this change in WordPress behaviour – it did used to be possible to directly influence the title attribute of an image when uploading and adding it to a page/post.
I’m sure that I’m not the only one who didn’t appreciate this situation. There is a plugin called Shutter Reloaded that I’ve seen on a couple of sites, which uses the title attribute from the image to provide a caption beneath the image when the full size is shown. Obviously this plugin is broken if site admins don’t realise the title attributes aren’t being written into the <img> tags – and the plugin author perhaps doesn’t realise either. I can’t comment on other lightbox plugins.
What do you think? Is this what you expected? Is this the right way to go?
My take on it: The main Accessibility page in the Codex serves two big purposes: Introducing accessibility to current WordPress users, and introducing accessibility implementation to users who are new to WordPress.
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