Accessibility Checkpoint WCAG 2 F72 and Section 508 1194.22 (a)
Description
img alt
text must not use ASCII art (which includes smileys).
Help
Change the ALT text to a meaningful description. ALT text consisting of punctuation characters sounds like «colon dash right-bracket» when read aloud.
Applicable Standards
- Section 508 (2000) 1194.22 (a)
- WCAG 1.0 1.1
- WCAG 2.0 F72 (Success Criteria: 1.1.1 level A)
- Section 508 (2017) F72 (Success Criteria: 1.1.1 level A)
Note: Section 508 (2000) checkpoints (a) through (k) are equivalent to WCAG 1.0 level A checkpoints. Section 508 Refresh (2017) checkpoints are equivalent to WCAG 2.0 level AA checkpoints.
Impact on Users
- NVDA 2015.2 / IE11 Reads «graphic», with no indication what the graphic is.
- JAWS 16.0.4350 / IE11 Meaningless punctuation read.
- WindowEyes 8.4 / IE11 Meaningless punctuation read.
Change history
- 5.27 Oct 2017 Fixed false positives and negatives. Changed rule ID from AccWcag1-1.1.14 to AccHtmlImgAltAsciiArt.
- 5.9 Jun 2015 Detect non-standard image tag.
- 3.5 Dec 2009 Don’t fire for non-Latin characters and images of punctuation characters (e.g. a big question mark graphic).
- 3.0 Dec 2008 Now triggers WCAG2 issue.
- 2.0 Dec 2007 Now triggers Section 508 issue.
- 1.0 Feb 2007 Added.
This page describes a web site issue detected by SortSite Desktop and OnDemand Suite.
Rule ID: AccHtmlImgAltAsciiArt