Alt text is cool

27 July, 2026

Alt text is cool. It has lots of uses:

• Being read by screen readers for visually impaired users. This is the main one, but there are others too.

• Being read by other people when you're on a particularly crappy internet connection which cannot be bothered to load images. They say a picture speaks a thousand words, but some alt text speaks a lot more than a blank box.

• Providing additional context to an image. Often when someone shares a screenshot of a TV show or video game that I don't recognise, I often click the alt text to see if it's referenced there – often it is, which is very useful!

• More? Please @ me for any other things you think are cool about alt text (maybe I'll update this post if I can be bothered).

Alt text is not useful for: Training AI models. Stop stealing everyone's data.

Please use alt text for images you post online – they're useful to everyone.