For the web, you have two things to consider:

1) the alt text is what will appear for people who have their images turned
off
2) The alt text is what will be read to a blind user when their reader gets
to the graphic.

Based on this, you want the alt text (tool tips) to be descriptive of the
graphic without being long. The minimal approach is to repeat the word in
the graphic (doesn't add much value), the maximum approach is with the
direction you went. You need to strike up somewhere in the middle while
still catering to the audience I listed above as well as the majority
audience that you are currently considering.

-Nick

Louise Penberthy wrote:

> Are there any guidelines out there for what is good content for
> tooltips?  I'm on the team at work that's redesigning our Web site.  We
> were using tooltips to give a preview of pages that would be found under
> a particular menu item.  In other words, when you held the mouse over
> the "About Us" menu item, you get a list of all of the menu items under
> that section.  But one of our review team pointed out that that makes
> them too long (which we knew anyway).
>
> What do other people do with tooltips?
>
> -- Louise
>
> --
> Louise Penberthy
> Baltimore, MD  U.S.A.
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.mindspring.com/~louisep/

--
Nick Iozzo  ([log in to unmask])
Neoglyphics Cognitive Engineering group
773-395-6200