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