alt text

[awlt tekst]

noun

Digital Technology.

1. a written description of an image or other nontext content, included as an attribute in HTML code and rendered as text in place of the image or other element if it does not load on the web page or read by screen reader software at the point in the page sequence where the nontext element appears.

   If there’s no alt text for an image, a screen reader will read the filename—even if it’s just a string of numbers and letters.

Word History and Origins

Origin of alt text¹

First recorded in 1995–2000

Example Sentences

The funniest part about posting it was deciding the alt text for the image.

Read more on Slate

We were like, “Should we call it a cuck chair in the alt text, or should we just say: ‘Here’s a chair in the corner of the room’?”

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They have sought to imbue the app with social norms, like encouraging users to post alt text with their pictures so that blind users can engage with them.

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“Threads was shipped without basic accessibility functions like an alt text field or an in-app captioning tool,” said Alexa Heinrich on Twitter.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The alt text fields - which are supposed to describe what's in the images for blind users - simply read: "We're growing the economy".

Read more on BBC