Images

Do your images have good alt text?

Why it’s important

Sean is low-sighted and navigates pages by jumping to the page section she wants to get to.
Atawhai is blind and has to read the alt text to understand the contents of the image.
Caroline is looking for information with a search engine. She needs help to find the right content (descriptive alt tags will improve search).

Include the ability to have meaningful information describing each image in the alt text field.
Different image types have different alt text requirements. Use the alt Decision Tree(this link opens an external website) from W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) to assist in the type of alt text required.
Use null (empty) alt text when text describing the image is already on the page (alt="").
Use an empty null (alt="") with no space between quotes or a CSS background image if the image is decorative and you don't want it read by a screen reader.

Last modified: 5 May 2021