Thread: alt tags needed?

Someone mentioned to me once that images had to have an alt because if not then they would not pass the css validtion test, is this true? if not, did they mean they had to have an id like this id="image1" or could you get away with just using alt=""? I just hate it when you put your mouse over a banner and it says something like 'menu right' it just kinda annoys me :shades_smile:

it should be done with alt="my tag" but it does not have to be done with css rendered images, just those that are directly in the html

CSS rendered image? you just mean like backgrounds?

yup thats what I mean, sorry lol..

Althought I could apply the alt tag and use JS to stop it from showing, hmm. Maybe it would work :P Cheers for the quick reply mate

no problem.. hope it helped

It helped alot, thankyou.

The reason you should be using them is for people using screen readers, as people using these are genreally blind and the image alt will be read out by the screen reader. It's more of an accesibilty and usability issue than a CSS issue but at the end of the day it's good practice.

I would also suggest placing a full stop at the end, otherwise the reader won't pause, and what i would use normally is something along the lines of 'alt="Image: displaying a landscape view of a river"' This will also be use full for people browsing in text based browsers.

I would also suggest placing a full stop at the end, otherwise the reader won't pause

I never knew that.. thanks

Great tip Gaz.