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Web Development vocabulary · Accessibility

Alt text

Meaning in web development, with examples

nounCore term

In web development, alt text means: A short written description of an image, added with the alt attribute, that screen readers read aloud and browsers show if the image fails to load.

In Turkish: alternatif metin, alt metni

How it is used

Developers and editors write, add and check alt text. Purely decorative images get an empty alt (alt="") so screen readers skip them. Good alt text describes the purpose of the image, not just its appearance.

Example sentences

  1. Every product photo needs alt text before we publish the page.

  2. The alt text just says 'image1.jpg', which doesn't help anyone.

Common collocations

  • write alt text
  • add alt text
  • empty alt
  • descriptive alt text
  • accessibilityThe practice of making websites usable by everyone, including people who are blind or deaf, have limited movement or use assistive technology.
  • attributeExtra information written inside an opening HTML tag as a name and a value, such as href in a link or alt in an image.
  • screen readerSoftware that reads the content of a screen aloud or sends it to a braille display, used mainly by blind and visually impaired people.
  • image optimizationMaking image files as small as possible while they still look good, for example by compressing and resizing them and by using modern formats.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Accessibility

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