• New Zealand Government Web Standards 2.0

• New Zealand Government Web Standards 1.0
  • » 1. Images
  • » 2. Colour
  • » 3. Site Markup
  • » 4. Special Purpose Documents
  • » 5. Writing Content
    • 5.1 Identify changes in natural language of document text
    • 5.2 Identify the primary natural language of a document
    • 5.3 Expansion of abbreviations and acronyms in a document
    • 5.4 Substituting umlauted vowels for macronised vowels
    • 5.5 Height and width attributes are specified in the IMG element
    • 5.6 Underlining is not used for any items making up text or headings
    • 5.7 Provide metadata to pages and sites
    • Recommendation 5.1.1 Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for the site content
    • Recommendation 5.1.2 Supplement text with graphic or auditory presentations
    • Recommendation 5.1.3 The alt text ends with a full point and a space
  • » 6. Site Content
  • » 7. Page Layout
  • » 8. Navigation
  • » 9. Style Sheets
  • » 10. Dynamic Content
  • » 11. Tables
  • » 12. Frames
  • » 13. Scripting and Applets
  • » 14. Page Refreshing
  • » 15. Site Behaviour
  • » 16. Site Layout
  • » 17. Archiving
  • » 18. Quality Assurance
  • » 19. Data Tracking
  • » 20. Authentication
  • » 21. Security
  • » 22. Online Forms
  • » 23. Tendering and Contracting
  • » 30. Site Delivery
  • » 31. Operational
  • » 32. Web Strategy

Recommendation 5.1.3 The alt text ends with a full point and a space

The Recommendation

Recommendation 5.1.3 The alt text ends with a full point and a space

Rationale for this recommendation

If the alt text does not end with a full point and space, a number of assistive technologies such as screen readers will continue reading the end of a sentence and confusing the alt text with content. While the later versions of popular assistive technology tools Jaws and Window Eyes will recognise alt text without the full point and space, many blind internet users in New Zealand use older versions, mainly due to newer versions not being freely downloadable (as browser versions are) and being relatively expensive, especially for those with limited means.