Importance for Accessibility
Users of assistive technology and users with low internet bandwidth who turn off images will not understand the full context of your image content without alt text descriptions. It is essential that you include alt text for any image that conveys meaning and context to users of your web content.
Alt Text Descriptions
When creating alt text, please observe the following best practices:
- Be clear, concise and descriptive.
- Alt text should be 125 characters or less per image
- Avoid adding phrases that start with "image or picture of..." as this is redundant to the screen reader user.
- Avoid redundancy: Do not copy title or caption text into the alt text field as this will cause redundancy for users of assistive technology.
For a tutorial-based understanding of alt text, the W3C created an alt Decision Tree to help you understand how and when to use alt text.
Complex Images
In some cases, such as when using graph data or other complex imagery, a different type of alternative is required. Please visit our Complex Images and Alternative Text using AI page for more information.