DRAFT DOCUMENT

This is a draft document supplied by the WCAG Techniques Task Force. It in no way represents a WCAG Working Group consensus or agreement and is provided for informational and discussion purposes only. The accessibility test listed below should not be construed as required for conformance with the proposed WCAG2.

HTML Test Suite for WCAG 2.0
Test 4 - Non-Decorative images must have Alt text.

W3C Editor's Draft 2005-08-11

Editors:: Chris Ridpath, ATRC, University Of Toronto; Jenae Andershonis, Microsoft Inc.

Abstract

This test case was created by the ATRC at the University Of Toronto. It should not be construed as required for conformance with the proposed WCAG2.

The complete list of tests may be found at http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/tests/

Comments on this test may be made to the WCAG mailing list.

Status Of This Test

As part of the conformance test process, this test has a status of 'rejected'.

WCAG2 Guideline

This test is not required for conformance to the current WCAG2. It is provided for discussion and informational purposes only.

Techniques

There are no techniques related to this test.

Prerequisite Tests

The following tests must be run before running this test. If any of the prerequisite tests fail then this test is invalid and should not be run.

All img elements have an alt attribute.

Test Process

Procedure

Check each img element and view its alt attribute value.
If the alt attribute value is an empty string ("") then proceed to the next step.
Determine if the image has non-decorative content.

Expected Results

The alt attribute value contains text if the image is non-decorative.

Fail Instructions

If the image is non-decorative and the alt attribute value is an empty string ("") then add an appropriate alt attribute value.

Pass Instructions

The following tests are related to this test and may be performed next. There is no requirement that these tests be performed:

Alt text for all img elements is not placeholder text.

Test Files

These test files contain examples of the accessibility problem detectable by this test. They may also contain more accessibility problems than the one described in this test. Please ignore any extraneous accessibility problems in these files.

4-1.html Will fail the test. (IMG is non-decorative but has empty Alt text.)

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/strict.dtd"> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>OAC Testfile - Check #4 - Positive</title> </head> <body> <p>We would like to adopt another pet and are looking for one that is similar to what's shown in the picture.</p> <img src="rex.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="105"/> </body> </html>
4-2.html Will pass the test. (IMG is non-decorative and has valid Alt text.)

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/strict.dtd"> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>OAC Testfile - Check #4 - Negative</title> </head> <body> <p>We would like to adopt another pet and are looking for one that is similar to what's shown in the picture.</p> <img src="rex.jpg" alt="large brown and black cat named Rex" width="150" height="105"/> </body> </html>