Fahrner Image Replacement Options

[bragadocchio]

An interesting little screed plopped into the middle of an article on Digital Web Magazine:

A note from a graphic designer to coders and accessibility and usability experts who still don’t get it: You may try telling us that image-based text is against what the Web is about, but that’s blindly ignoring our needs, and the last time that happened the Web ended up with spacer.gifs and table hacks. Image is what pays us, and it pays well. Work with us, and we can create a better Web for everyone.

From In Defense of Fahrner Image Replacement

[DianeV]

This technique is aimed at providing an image for sighted viewers, and readable text (I'm assuming by an aural browser reader) for non-sighted visitors that is made non-visible by setting the display to "none".

Having read this briefly, here's my take on it: any technique that relies on hiding text with display: none runs the risk of penalization by search engines, if not today, then sometime. Why? Because it's too easy to abuse.

And yet, the technique increases usability for non-sighted viewers.

In essence, what we're seeing here is the apparent divide between increasing usability and requirements for taking advantage of free search engine traffic.

My suggestion, rather than hiding text, would be to provide a second page for non-sighted viewers (all text, along the "print this page" lines, and block search engines from indexing it). Or, a "click here to have this image read to you" popup. Or, if you can live with some kind of repetition on the page, just add the text on the page itself.