WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Decorative image or not in a search listing?

for

From: Joe Allen-Black
Date: Apr 18, 2018 11:56AM

I'm having an internal debate on how to best guide the setup of alt text on
a listing page. I would love the group's opinions.

The page I am looking at is a listing of news articles. Each article has a
headline, digest text, and then a lead image from the article. The
headline and digest give proper information about what the article is
about.

I'm wondering about the need to include alt text with the image or go with
an alt=""

My thought to keep alt text is that it is content, so strong alt text would
give more information to visitor.

My thought for not including it is that the image is decorative in a way.
It doesn't aid in understanding (even if the alt text was written well). In
a way, it almost seems like more clutter for a person on a screenreader to
get image information, then similar information the headline and digest.

I've seen different approaches on different sites. Would love more feedback.

Thanks!