Alt Text in Sites Component

[ShaylaBl]

Hi All,

When alt text is input and/or inherited to a component, does the component do some kind of transformation to make the text readable? In other words, is there a process making alt text readable to screen readers or is it innately readable?

Would appreciate guidance on this, thank you!

[martin_ecx_io]

Screen readers are looking for specific attributes on your html elements - for images the "alt" attribute contains what the screen reader will say to describe the image, eg:

<img src="dog.jpg" alt="Dog with a bell attached to its collar.">

you should ensure alt text is only added to images which add meaning to the page as screen readers will read this out to the end user - this is why for "decorative" images it is valid to have a blank alt text - this indicates the image can be ignored when reading the content of the page to the user.

There is some info about how and when to use alt text here: https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/decision-tree/