On: The easiest way to keep your web apps accessible: ...

[perlgeek]

From that link:

> An image on a Web site depicts the floor plan of a building. The image is an image map with each room an interactive map area. The alt text is "The building's floor plan. Select a room for more information about the purpose or content of the room." The instruction to "select a room" indicates that the image is interactive.

And how does it help any blind person to know that there is a building plan, but none of the contents of the building plan are described?

Or am I misunderstanding the purpose of the ALT text?

[izacus → perlgeek]

It's in the last sentence you pasted: > The instruction to "select a room" indicates that the image is interactive.

That assumption is that the rooms are selectable, so "tabbing" with a screen reader will select each and speak their Alt text.