Writing good alt text
(456 Berea Street)I do quite a bit of quality assurance work, specifically looking at the accessibility and web standards use of websites. In many cases I make remarks about the use of alternative text for images and other graphic elements.
It is, not surprisingly, common for alternative text to be completely absent, but it is probably even more common to see inappropriate use of the alt attribute. In most cases this is caused by well-meaning people using the alt attribute to describe the image itself instead of the function it has or the content it presents.
Two rules of thumb I use when writing alt text for images are these:
If you were to describe the document to someone over the phone, would you mention the image or its content? If you would, the image probably needs an...
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