Is Your Alt Text Actually Good? A Developer's Guide to Writing (and Checking) Descriptions That Work

You've added alt text. But is it any good? Most developers I talk to treat alt text as a binary thing: either the alt attribute is there or it isn't. But the spec is more nuanced than that, and bad alt text — alt text that's technically present but useless — can be just as harmful as no alt text at all. This guide covers how to write effective alt text, how to evaluate what you've already got, and how to use a free checker to get instant quality scores. Why "Any Alt Text" Isn't Good Enough Here's a quick breakdown of common failure modes: <!-- Failure 1: Missing entirely --> <img src= "product-shot.jpg" > <!-- Failure 2: Filename as alt text (useless) --> <img src= "IMG_2847.jpg" alt= "IMG_2847.jpg" > <!-- Failure 3: Generic descriptor (nearly useless) --> <img src= "team.jpg" alt= "image" > <!-- Failure 4: "Image of" redundancy (screen readers already say "image") --> <img src= "ceo.jpg" alt= "Image of CEO" > <!-- Failure 5: Keyword stuffing (bad for everyone) --> <img src= "shoe.jpg"