WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: alt or alt=""

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Aug 30, 2019 5:47PM

Is it possible that some automated accessibility testing tools might report a false positive? They shouldn't, but it's the sort of thing they tend to get wrong because no one thought about it.

In the past we just ignored false positives like this, but since the number of ADA cases skyrocketed we have been advising clients to fix any code that results in false positives even if it's the tool that's wrong and not their code. We know the ADA trolls use automated tools to find their victims, so eliminating false positives reduces your chance of being a target.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of glen walker
Sent: 31 August 2019 00:30
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [WebAIM] alt or alt=""

I've always recommended specifying alt="" for decorative images and am not sure why I didn't think of this earlier but specifying alt without any value is essentially the same thing. It's valid html syntax and has the same effect with hiding the image from screen readers.

Seems like a simple thing but does anyone know why we shouldn't use alt by itself with no value? From an html spec perspective, they're the same thing.

It's three less characters to type so my lazy developer side likes it.