Alt Text: Difference between revisions

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Depending on where it appears, the alt text of the BBC's logo might be "Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation", "BBC" or a null value. In this case, it's the full text of this caption.

Alt text is an attribute of the HTML's <img> (image) and some other tags.

It is intended to be presented when the image (or other object) to which it pertains is not available to the user, for instance in a text-only browser or a refreshable Braille display. It is also available for indexing by search engines. It is not intended to provide "pop up" text or tooltips when a user's mouse hovers over the image, though alt text has historically been presented in this way in some web browsers. HTML's title attribute is the correct attribute to use if this is what is desired.

The presence of the attribute, which may be null (alt="") is a requirement for HTML standard compliance. However (except for purely decorative images, when it should be null), the use of meaningful alt text is necessary to comply with accessibility standards; and is good practice.

Note: Alt text is commonly, but incorrectly, refered to as an image's "alt tag".

External links

This World Wide Web–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

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 [[Image:BBC.svg|thumb|right|Depending on where it appears, the alt text of the [[BBC]]'s logo might be "Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation", "BBC" or a null value. In this case, it's the full text of this caption.]]
-'''Alt text''' is an attribute of the [[HTML]]'s <code><image></code> and some other [[HTML tag|tags]].
+'''Alt text''' is an attribute of the [[HTML]]'s <code>&lt;img&gt;</code> (image) and some other [[HTML tag|tags]].
-It is intended to be presented when the image (or other object) to which it pertains is not available to the user, for instance in a text-only browser or a [[refreshable Braille display]]. It is also available for indexing by [[search engine]]s. It is not intended to provide (though may be presented by some [[web browser]]s as) "pop up" text or [[tooltip]]s when a user's [[mouse (computing)|mouse]] hovers over the image.
+It is intended to be presented when the image (or other object) to which it pertains is not available to the user, for instance in a text-only browser or a [[refreshable Braille display]]. It is also available for indexing by [[search engine]]s. It is not intended to provide "pop up" text or [[tooltip]]s when a user's [[mouse (computing)|mouse]] hovers over the image, though alt text has historically been presented in this way in some [[web browser]]s. HTML's <code>title</code> attribute is the correct attribute to use if this is what is desired.
 The presence of the attribute, which may be null (<code>alt=""</code>) is a requirement for [[World Wide Web Consortium|HTML standard]] compliance. However (except for purely decorative images, when it should be null), the use of ''meaningful'' alt text is necessary to comply with [[WAI|accessibility standards]]; and is good practice.
-Note: Alt text is commonly, but wrongly, refered to an image's "alt tag".
+Note: Alt text is commonly, but incorrectly, refered to as an image's "alt tag".
 ==External links==
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 *[http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/alt/alt-text.html Alt text guidance from Alan Flavell]
 *[http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_23_providing_text_equivalents_for_images.html Dive in to accessibility page on alt text]
+*[http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/accessibility/contentaccessibility.html Content Accessibility Tutorial]
 *[http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/alt.html Alt text guidelines from Jukka "Yucca" Korpela]