Last Monday I wrote an article about the Quick Tips to Make Accessible Web Sites of the Web Accessibility Initiative of the W3C. I’ve promised to go through the quick tips, here is the first article.

"provide a text equivalent for every non-text element…"

The first tip is the one that recommends to provide a text equivalent for every non-text element, like an image, a video or a sound. I know, I don’t have to teach you about "alt", you know that, but many designers don’t use it.

alt="This is the alternative text!"

Alternative text is important for the impaired people surfing the web with screen readers, screen magnifiers or voice recognition software. Keep in mind that alternative text should not only be there but it should also be clear and representative of the content that is replacing.

Implementing this technique takes time but they improve the whole website usability, which means that users will feel more comfortable using the site (this means more visits and more money!). Users not always have the last computer with the last browser so it could be that many of your customers will be seeing the alternative text instead of an image, video or sound.

Google places an alternative text for the Google Checkout logo, without it a user that can not see images would get the incomplete phrase "Show ___ items only". You might also notice that here the alternative text "Show Google Checkout items only" could also help users seeing the image but not understanding this combination of text and image "Show [Google Checkout logo] items only".