WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Alternate text for images having caption adjacent

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: May 27, 2014 12:25PM

If you use alt="", the screen reader user will not generally be aware
that the image exists. But the purpose of alternative text is to
convey the content and function of an image, not indicate that an
image exists. In general, users won't really care whether the content
is conveyed via an image or via text - they just want the content.
(This is essentially what Don just wrote.)

One question that is sometimes good to ask is, "If I couldn't use an
image here, what text would I put in it's place?" This can help you
determine good alternative text. If it's important that the user know
that an image is present (this is not usually the case), then you
could indicate this in the alt attribute.

Jared