Image accessible name uses placeholder Accessibility Checkpoint
Description
alt
text should not contain placeholders like ‘picture’ or ‘spacer’.
Help
For purely decorative images and spacers use alt=''
, for images of text use the text, and for other images use a description of the image.
Applicable standards
- WCAG 2.0 F30 (Success Criteria: 1.1.1 level A, 1.2.1 level A)
- WCAG 2.1 F30 (Success Criteria: 1.1.1 level A, 1.2.1 level A)
- WCAG 2.2 F30 (Success Criteria: 1.1.1 level A, 1.2.1 level A)
- Section 508 (2017) F30 (Success Criteria: 1.1.1 level A, 1.2.1 level A)
Note: Section 508 Refresh (2017) checkpoints are equivalent to WCAG 2.0 level A and level AA checkpoints.
Impact on users
- JAWS Reads out placeholder text, instead of a useful image description.
- NVDA Reads out placeholder text, instead of a useful image description.
- VoiceOver Reads out placeholder text, instead of a useful image description.
Change history
- 6.48 Mar 2023 Fixed false positive.
- 5.36 Jan 2020 Fixed false positive.
- 5.27 Oct 2017 Improved placeholder detection. Changed rule ID from AccWcag1-1.1.15 to AccHtmlImgAltPlaceholder.
- 5.9 Jun 2015 Detect non-standard image tag.
- 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 in HTML documents by SortSite Desktop and OnDemand Suite.
Rule ID: AccHtmlImgAltPlaceholder