G100Sufficient technique WCAG 1.1.1 Level A Partly scanner-detectable

Use the accepted name as the alternative

Some content exists to be experienced rather than to carry information, and no description substitutes for it. A painting, a piece of music, a photograph as art. G100 says that where the thing has a name people know it by, that name is the alternative. W3C counts it as sufficient for the non-text-content rule at Level A, using a more specific technique, which in HTML means alt text. It works because the job here is identification. A blind reader cannot see the Mona Lisa and can still know that is what is on the page, which was the thing they needed. Where nothing carries an accepted name, a descriptive name does the same work. Name the recording, name the piece, name the artist.

How we find it in an audit

Artwork, music, photography and logos get checked for whether the alternative names the piece. A museum page describing its centerpiece as oil painting of a woman is a finding, because the name is the information and the description is not. Then a reviewer asks whether an accepted name genuinely exists, since inventing one is worse than describing honestly. Where the image also carries information, and plenty do, the name is a floor rather than the whole answer.

How affected users experience it

A blind visitor to a museum page is not asking to be told what a painting looks like. They are asking what is on the page, so they can talk about it, look it up, decide whether to read on, or simply know what everybody else is looking at. The name answers all of that in four words. A careful visual description answers none of it, and takes a great deal longer to say.

Passes vs. fails

Passes: alt text names the product. Fails: the file name is all there is.

Passes

Alt text reading The Mona Lisa (La Gioconda), Leonardo da Vinci, so the name carries the meaning to everybody.

Fails

A museum page describes its centerpiece with alt text reading oil painting of a woman with folded hands.

How this gets tested

The W3C publishes test rules that define what a checker looks for here.

Element marked as decorative is not exposedA tool can check this
Image accessible name is descriptiveA tool finds candidates, you decide
Image button has non-empty accessible nameA tool can check this
Image has non-empty accessible nameA tool can check this
Link has non-empty accessible nameA tool can check this
Object element rendering non-text content has non-empty accessible nameA tool can check this
SVG element with explicit role has non-empty accessible nameA tool can check this
Image not in the accessibility tree is decorativeA tool can check this

Other ways to satisfy this rule

39 guides on this site are filed under 1.1.1 Non-text Content. W3C lists this one as sufficient for that rule when it is implemented through a more specific technique, so the condition is part of the test rather than a footnote to it.

This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique G100: Providing a short text alternative which is the accepted name or a descriptive name of the non-text content. W3C publishes its techniques as guidance rather than as the standard, and says so on every one of them. The success criterion is what conformance is measured against, and a technique is one documented way to meet it.