Making non-text elements, particularly images, accessible is fundamental to accessible web design; even if you attended to this issue alone, you would make a big impact on the accessibility of your site.
All non-text elements must have labels (i.e. add the alt attribute); the alt attribute is a requirement for both HTML 4 and XHTML W3C standards based documents.
Text labels should serve the same purpose as the visual or auditory content it describes or replaces.
When all non-text elements are labelled by using alt attributes this ensures that:
- The text labels can be read out by screen readers
- People browsing with images off will still be able read the text
- Search engines can index the text – helping the page to be found by potential visitors.
Tags: accessible, not text elements
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Working with non-profits, charities, voluntary and public sector organisations and social enterprises for over 20 years. Jim set up one of the worlds first website accessibility web agencies in the mid 1990s.