Web Accessibility Checker : Check Details

Element

img

Error Type

Potential

Guidelines

Section 508
A - text equivalents
Stanca Act
Requirement 3: Text Equivalents
WCAG 2.0 (Level A)
1.1 Text Altrernatives: Provide text alternatives for any non-text content
Success Criteria 1.1.1 Non-text Content (A)
WCAG 2.0 (Level AA)
1.1 Text Alternatives: Provide text alternatives for any non-text content
Success Criteria 1.1.1 Non-text Content (A)
WCAG 2.0 (Level AAA)
1.1 Text Alternatives: Provide text alternatives for all non-text content
Success Criteria 1.1.1 Non-text Content (A)

Requirement

Image Alt text is short.

Error

Image Alt text may be too long.

Short Description

Image Alt text is short or user must confirm that Alt text is as short as possible.

Rationale

Alt text should be as short as possible.

How To Determine

Question	Is this Alt text as short as possible?
PASS	Alt text is as short as possible.
FAIL	Alt text is not as short as possible.

Steps To Check

Procedure

1. For each img element, calculate the length of text within the alt attribute value.
2. If the Alt text is greater than 100 characters (English) then it must be shortened or the user must confirm that it is the shortest Alt text possible.

Expected Result

1. Image Alt text is short or the user has confirmed that the Alt text is as short as possible.

Failed Result

1. If the alt attribute value is greater than 100 characters (English) then either shorten the alt attribute value or confirm that current value is the shortest possible for the associated image.

Examples

Pass Examples

Alt text is shorter than 100 characters.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/xhtml; charset=UTF-8" />
<title>OAC Testfile - Check #3 - Negative</title>
</head>
<body>
<p><img src="rex.jpg" alt="photo of rex the cat"/></p>
</body>
</html>

Fail Examples

Alt text is longer than 100 characters.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/xhtml; charset=UTF-8" />
<title>OAC Testfile - Check #3 - Positive</title>
</head>
<body>
<p><img src="rex.jpg" alt="A picture of Rex the cat with some extra text. This is very long alt text. In fact, it was much much too long for this image. Sort alt text would be much better and this alt text should be shortened."/></p>
</body>
</html>