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F38: Failure of Success Criterion 1.1.1 due to omitting the alt-attribute for non-text content used for decorative purposes only in HTML

Applicability

HTML and XHTML

This failure relates to:

Success Criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content)
- How to Meet 1.1.1 (Non-text Content)
- Understanding Success Criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content)

Description

This describes a failure condition for text alternatives for images that should be ignored by AT. If there is no alt attribute at all assistive technologies are not able to ignore the non-text content. The alt attribute must be provided and have a null value (i.e., alt="" or alt=" ") to avoid a failure of this Success Criterion.

Note: Although alt=" " is valid, alt="" is recommended.

Examples

Failure Example 1: Decorative images that have no alt attribute

Resources

No resources available for this technique.

(none currently listed)

Tests

Procedure

Identify any img and applet elements that are used for purely decorative content;
Check that the alt attribute for these elements exists.
Check that the alt attribute for these elements is null.

Expected Results

if step #2 or step #3 is false, this failure condition applies and content fails the Success Criterion.

This Web page is part of Techniques and Failures for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. The entire document is also available as a single HTML file. See the The WCAG 2.0 Documents for an explanation of how this document fits in with other Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 documents. [begin add]To send public comments, please follow the Instructions for Commenting on WCAG 2.0 Documents.[end add]