google-map tiles missing alt tag causing lower accessibility score

Question

How can we add blank alt tags to the Google map tiles (generated by v3 api) so that they do not lower our accessibility score?

http://berkeley.edu/map/googlemap/

Answer 1

Couldn't let this 1 go

You can use the tilesloaded event then use jQuery to modify the images post render

google.maps.event.addListener(this.map, 'tilesloaded', function(evt){
    $(this.getDiv()).find("img").each(function(i, eimg){
      if(!eimg.alt || eimg.alt ===""){
         eimg.alt = "Google Maps Image";
      }
    });
 });

Answer 2

I work for a company (Deque Systems) that creates an Enterprise scanning engine that generates an accessibility score for each page and each project. My recommendation is to use that as a very rough guide ONLY and to instead focus your efforts on making sure your site is really accessible. Automated testing tools can only catch 30% - 50% of accessibility issues.

In terms of a "more accessible" Google maps - take a look at this "accessible" version of Google maps I created. It does more than simply add alt attributes to the image tiles. It also adds focus styles (albeit ugly ones) to the focusable elements and adds accessible names to the controls where these are missing. Note that it is language dependent and my implementation only works for English and German.