Alt text for site skin previews

[fu]

We're adding some previews when you're choosing a site skin, and I've been thinking about an appropriate level of information for the alt text.

The alt text mentions the colors, the orientation of the menus, and whether or not the menus use Javascript. Is there anything else that needs to be added, or is there any non-essential information that should be removed?

For reference, here is sample alt text for four of the site skins:

Celerity

Olive and white with vertical non-Javascript menus

Gradation Horizontal

White on black with horizontal Javascript menus

Gradation Vertical

White on black with vertical non-Javascript menus

Lynx

Simple, bare skin with minimal decoration and navigation

Comments

Happy to try ...

[jesse_the_k]

my abstract reasoning is on vacation, but I'm happy to play around with samples and point at "this works!" and "this is hard!" :,)

Re: Happy to try ...

[afuna]

Hee, okay. How does something like this look?

Celerity

Alt text: Olive and white with vertical non-Javascript menus

No additional description

Gradation Horizontal

Alt text: White on black with horizontal Javascript menus

Description: Light on dark layout for less glare; uses Javascript for menus

Gradation Vertical

Alt text: White on black with vertical non-Javascript menus

Description: Light on dark layout for less glare

Tropospherical Red

Alt text: Red and grey with horizontal Javascript menus

Description: Muted gray background for less screen glare, with slightly smaller font. Uses Javascript for menus

Lynx

Alt text: Simplest skin with minimal menus and features

Description: Simple skin with focus on content and minimal navigation. Mostly uses the browser defaults

Re: Happy to try ...

[jesse_the_k]

Sorry for the delay in replying.

Uses Javascript for menus

I must blushingly admit I don't know what the implications are.

Is that when I can't make a selection because my shaky fingers create a shaky pointer cursor that doesn't stick a selection? Or is it the opposite thing where I have to use the arrow pointer to fly out the menu and tabbing the choices stops on the top level without highlighting?

I guess the general message is: teach me a little more as you're informing me.

Tropo Red: "...with 80% smaller font" (if known?)

Lynx
"Uses browser defaults for fonts and colors, with narrower text column"

Thanks for listening!

Re: Happy to try ...

[deborah]

both of those are JavaScript. A JavaScript menu is any web-based menu which is dynamic, and works as if it were a menu on a Windows computer or a Mac that can expand based on some prompt. That prompt could either be a mouse over or a keyboard/click or something else.

Without JavaScript, menus are static things, with links that sit on the page without moving.

So in this case, I guess the text should be "Has expanding menus". Would that be clear?

Re: Happy to try ...

[jesse_the_k]

Ahhh, thanks for the education.

I'll just say that what I want to know is how accommodating my layout is, so if you listed:

"Uses Javascript dynamic menus, pointer control required to navigate menu"

then I can choose to use a different design.

Re: Happy to try ...

[fu]

Thanks for pointing out that the text was unclear! I'd like to allow people to be able to quickly judge which layouts would/would not work for them, so all this has been very helpful.

We don't have a lot of space under there, though. Would collapsing the two clauses into one still work? Something like:

"(other description). Menu expands on mouse hover".


And re: description of Lynx upthread

I'm not quite sure what you mean by narrower text column -- I think that Lynx doesn't constrain the text width in any way, and it doesn't have any sidebars so no additional things taking up space there. Any examples so I can poke at it?