Ready to Make Your Website More Accessible? Try Scribely’s Alt Text Checker!

How Scribely’s Alt Text Checker Works

To use the tool, simply head to www.scribely.com/alt-text-checker. In the input box on the page, enter the URL of the page you want to check. For example, to check Scribely’s home page, we would enter www.scribely.com. Then hit the “Submit” button.

Depending on the size of the page and the number of images on the page, the tool will take a few seconds to scan the page, then populate the results underneath. You can scroll down through the results to see them, as well as click the button at the top to download a CSV file with all the results.

The results are categorized by the type of error, with each image that falls into that category listed underneath. Next to each image, it will list any alt text found, any Extended Description found, and the image’s link.

The Alt Text Checker not only lists the type of error, but also the recommended action to take to fix the error. They are:

• Alt text is a filename. Write a description.
• Matches nearby content. Write a description.
• Missing alt text. Confirm image is decorative.
• Manual check. No issues found with alt text.

Alt Text Is A Filename. Write a Description.

This error is simple and quite common. Instead of having a description of what’s in the image, the alt text simply says the name of the file. For example: Image01.jpg.

Because that doesn’t help a user to understand the contents of the image, to fix this error, simply write a description for that image and enter it into the Alt Text attribute for that image on your site.

Matches Nearby Content. Write a Description.

This error seems minor, but it’s actually quite important. If your alt text is simply repeating text that’s already elsewhere on the page (e.g. a product description), then what’s the point of the alt text? 

Imagine you’re considering buying a sweater in a physical store and have a question about the care instructions listed on the tag inside the sweater. You approach a store employee, ask your question, and they simply repeat the care instructions verbatim. Did you gain the extra information you were seeking? Or did you just get annoyed and probably won’t purchase the sweater?

Alt text exists to convey the information contained in an image in an alternate format (text). So instead of repeating text already found on the page, when you’re writing your new description, look at the image and try to relay the details that are shown in the image.

Missing Alt Text. Check if Image is Decorative.

When images are decorative and do not convey necessary information or are not part of site navigation, they don’t need alt text. So having an empty alt text description isn’t necessarily wrong. For any images listed here, simply verify that they are in fact decorative. If any of them aren’t, write a description and enter it for the image.

Manual Check. No Issues Found with Alt Text.

Hooray! Every image listed in this category has alt text of the appropriate length. Check through them all to verify that they are not decorative (and therefore shouldn’t have alt text) and that the descriptions actually describe the image itself. If everything is correct, then you don’t need to do anything with these images.

Try It Out and Let Us Know What You Think

That’s it! Once you’re done with that page, simply rinse and repeat for all pages/URLs on your site. And if you or your team don’t have the bandwidth to fix the errors found on your site, check out our convenient image accessibility services that make fixing image accessibility affordable, quick, and easy.