Server-side Image Maps

Accessibility Standards Checklist

Requirement

Provide redundant text links for each active region of a server-side image map. NOTE: The next standard, (f), requires that client-side image maps should be used instead of server-side image maps.

Reason

An image map is an image of something (often an actual map) on a Web page that has links associated with it depending on where a user clicks on the image. There are two basic types of image maps, client-side and server-side image maps. With client-side image maps (using "usemap"), each "active region" in a picture can be assigned its own link that specifies what Web page to retrieve when a portion of the picture is selected. By contrast, clicking on a location of a server-side image map (using "ismap"), only specifies the coordinates within the image when the mouse was depressed because server-side image maps require a specific input device.

When a web page uses a server-side image map to present the user with a selection of options, browsers cannot indicate to the user the URL that will be followed when a region of the map is activated. Therefore, the redundant text link is necessary to provide access to the page for anyone not able to see or accurately click on the map.

Examples

Provide an alternative list of links after the image map and indicate the existence and location of the alternative list via the alt attribute.

  • <a href="my_map.html"><img src="welcome.gif" alt="Welcome! (Text links follow)" ismap></a>
  • <p>[<a href="reference.html">Reference</a>]
  • [<a href="media.html">Audio Visual Lab</a>]
  • </p>

Suggestions for testing this on your pages

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