Alternative Text

Alternative text (or alt text) is a short written description of what a non-text element, usually an image, communicates. It lives in the alt attribute of the markup and stands in whenever the image itself can't be seen.

A screen reader announces it to people who are blind, and it appears when an image fails to load. Good alt text describes the meaning rather than the pixels: "Smiling nurse greeting a patient" tells you more than "photo." It is a small habit that supports web accessibility.