Write good alt text

Alt text is a short description of a picture that screen readers read aloud, and that shows if the picture won't load. Describe what matters about the picture on this page, as if telling someone on the phone.

Or let the Alt text writer draft it for you. Picture Check finds the pictures that need it.

Check the official rules. Rules and dates change, so check them with the official sources before you rely on them: ADA.gov (the US Department of Justice), the W3C's WCAG pages and Section508.gov. PageKiwi helps you find problems and get closer to meeting the rules. It can't promise a website meets them, it isn't legal advice, and we can't take responsibility for decisions made from it.

Better and worse

Picture	Weak	Good
A product photo	hoodie	Navy hoodie with the Wrenfield crest on the chest
Your team	image of people	Our four staff outside the store on Main Street
A map	map	Map showing the parking lot behind the church, two minutes' walk from the store
A poster with words	poster	Harvest supper, Friday, October 23, 7 p.m., town hall, $15

Five rules

Say what matters on this page: on a store page, the color and the product; on an About page, who's in it.
Don't start with "image of" or "picture of". Screen readers already say it's a picture.
If the picture has words that matter (a poster, a menu), include them.
Keep it short, usually a sentence. Longer detail belongs in the page's text.
Purely decorative pictures (a pattern, a divider) get empty alt text, so screen readers skip them.

Where to add it

WordPress
Click the picture, and in the panel on the right, fill in Alternative text.
Wix
Click the picture, then the settings gear, and fill in What's in the image?
Squarespace
Click the image block, then the pencil, and fill in Image alt text.
Shopify
Open the product, click the photo and choose Add alt text.