WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Is using aria-label to add alternative text - but no alt attribute still a WCAG fail?

for

From: Jim Byrne Accessible Web Design
Date: Aug 23, 2024 4:07AM

Thanks Patrick and all - for the gentle kick in the head for my mistakes. LOL

Painful but much appreciated to be put right. :-)

The quote is from https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/F65.html "The alt attribute continues to be the preferred way to provide alternative text for images.=E2=80=9D.

My incorrect assertion related to aria-label was from memory: faulty memory obviously.

I won't make that mistake again. I did in fact start with the correct understanding - but managed to talk myself out of it as I was looking online.

Thanks y'all,
Jim

> On 23 Aug 2024, at 10:47, Patrick H. Lauke < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> On 23/08/2024 10:39, Jim Byrne Accessible Web Design wrote:
>> I see W3C says =E2=80=98"The alt attribute continues to be the preferred way to provide alternative text for images=E2=80=9D - which is bit vague.
>
> Would be helpful to point to where this is said.
>
>> The ARIA docs say that Aria-label is designed to add additional information. I.e., not the primary information expected via the alt attribute.
>
> Where does it say that? looking at https://w3c.github.io/aria/#aria-label it doesn't give me the impression that it means "additional information", because that would be incorrect. aria-label provides the accessible name for an element.
>
>> I'm assuming that having no alt attribute on an image is still a fail - even if ARIA is used to provide the alternative text - and specifically using aria-label instead of the alt attribute. Am I correct?
>
> aria-label provides the accessible name for an image, the same way alt provides the accessible name. Unless I'm missing a nuance, the two end up being identical and lead to the exact same end result.
>
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
>
> * https://www.splintered.co.uk/
> * https://github.com/patrickhlauke
> * https://flickr.com/photos/redux/
> * https://mastodon.social/@patrick_h_lauke
>
> > > >