WCAG 2.2 · Guideline 1.1 · Perceivable
Text Alternatives
Anything that is not text needs words attached, because text can be read, spoken, or felt.
Text is the one format with nothing baked into how it looks. A screen reader can speak it, a braille display can raise it, and it can be enlarged, translated, or turned into simpler language without losing what it means. Nothing else on a page does all of that. So anything that is not text needs a text equivalent standing behind it, and that reaches a lot further than photographs. Icons, charts, audio files, silent video, and the puzzle at your login are all non-text content.
One success criterion lives here, and it is 1.1.1 Non-text Content at Level A. There is nothing above it. Guideline 1.1 is the only one of the 13 with a single rule and no Level AA or AAA layer, so the whole obligation lands at the base level and applies to everything you publish. The guideline itself is not something you can fail, because conformance is measured against the criterion underneath it. A report that says you failed guideline 1.1 means you failed 1.1.1.
- Rules
- 1
- Level A
- 1
- Level AA
- 0
- Human testing only
- 0
The Text Alternatives rule
What goes wrong here
These are the failures we find repeatedly under 1.1, across sites of every size.
- Decorative images arrive with descriptive alt text. A screen reader then announces furniture, and the reader has to work out which announcements carry meaning and which are wallpaper.
- An image carries information the surrounding words never state, and it ships with no text alternative. The information is simply gone for anyone not looking at the picture.
- Icon-only buttons have no accessible name. They announce as "button". That tells a reader something is there and nothing about what it does.
- Charts and infographics are labelled "chart". The label names the object rather than the finding, so the one thing the graphic exists to say is the one thing it does not say.
- Audio, silent video and CAPTCHA are treated as somebody else's problem. They are non-text content too, and this rule is where their base obligation starts.
Who it affects
- Blind and low-vision people using a screen reader, who get whatever the markup exposes and nothing else. Where an image carried the meaning and no alternative exists, the meaning does not reach them.
- People reading through braille output, who need the alternative to carry the information rather than describe the picture. A caption that repeats the alt text word for word wastes a line they have to read twice.
- Anyone whose images failed to load. Alt text is usually what rescues that page, though nearby text can carry the same information and sometimes does.
- People using speech input, who need a control's name to match what they can see well enough to say it out loud.
How to work through it
- 1List every piece of non-text content on the page. Not just images. Audio files, video, charts, icons, CAPTCHA, and anything drawn rather than written.
- 2Sort each one into decorative or meaningful before you write a word. Ask what the reader loses if it vanishes. Judge that in the place it actually sits, because the same picture answers differently on two pages.
- 3Write meaningful alternatives for what the content conveys in its context, not for what it literally depicts. The same photograph on two pages can honestly need two different sentences.
- 4Give a decorative HTML image an empty alt attribute so assistive technology skips it. Other formats have their own way of marking something ignorable, so check what your format offers rather than assuming the attribute exists.
- 5Route the timed media to guideline 1.2 and come back. Captions, audio description and transcripts are its job, and 1.1.1 only asks that prerecorded media be identified by a short descriptive label.
- 6Check every icon-only control last, because it is the failure that survives the most redesigns. Confirm a screen reader can speak the name, and that the name says what the control does.
How the levels build
One criterion sits here, at Level A, and that is unusual among the 13 guidelines. There is no AA or AAA layer to grow into, so the full obligation lands at the base level. The part teams underestimate is scope. It is not an image rule. It covers every piece of non-text content you publish, and it splits into distinct situations: controls and inputs need a name that identifies their purpose, media and live content need a descriptive label, tests and sensory experiences need identification rather than a literal equivalent, CAPTCHA needs both a purpose description and a second form using a different sense, and decoration needs to be marked so assistive technology can ignore it. A literal text equivalent is the answer for a lot of images. It is not the universal answer.
Other Perceivable guidelines
- 1.2Time-based MediaAudio and video need captions, transcripts, and description, because sound and picture do not reach everyone.
- 1.3AdaptableStructure has to live in the code, not only in the way the page looks.
- 1.4DistinguishableContent has to be easy to see and hear as it ships, with no adjustment needed.
Part of the Perceivable principle · browse by level: Level A · Level AA · or the full 55-rule library.
See how your site does against these rules.
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