Alt Text Gone Wrong: Why Your Image Descriptions Are Failing Accessibility Tests

You know that feeling when you realize you've been pronouncing a word wrong your entire life? That's what happens when someone finally tells you that your alt text strategy has been accidentally hostile to blind and low-vision users for the past three years.

Here's the brutal truth: writing "image" as alt text is like describing a Michelin-star restaurant as "place with food." Screen reader users don't need you to confirm that a visual element exists - they already know that. What they need is the actual information that element contains. Yet somehow, across the web, thousands of developers are out here slapping "image," "photo," "pic_2024_final_FINAL_v3.jpg" onto images like they're filling out a form at the DMV.

And here's where it gets worse: you probably won't catch this problem until someone audits your site, files a complaint, or a regression testing suite flags it. Which means you've been shipping broken accessibility for who knows how long.

The Alt Text Disaster You're Not Seeing (But Users Are)

Let's establish what we're actually dealing with. According to accessibility research published by WebAIM, approximately 68% of images on the web have problematic or missing alt text. That's not a rounding error - that's basically every other image you encounter online.

The usual suspects of bad alt text fall into three categories:

• The Lazy: "image," "photo," "graphic" - congratulations, you've described nothing
• The Accidental: Filenames like "Banner_Hero_20260731_compressed.png" - thanks for the timestamp, really helped
• The Overzealous: Alt text longer than a Terms of Service document that describes every pixel, color, and emotional resonance of the image

What makes this particularly devious is that lazy alt text feels fine when you're testing manually. The page renders. It looks good. Your browser's inspector doesn't yell at you. But when a screen reader user hits your site, they're getting less information than a sighted user - which is, you know, the entire accessibility problem we're trying to solve.

Building Regression Tests That Actually Catch This Stuff

Here's where we turn this accessibility disaster into something you can automate and never accidentally ship again: regression testing.

Automated Testing (The Easy Win):

Your testing suite can absolutely be set up to fail builds when alt text is missing, empty (when it shouldn't be), or contains obvious red flags. Use tools like axe-core or pa11y in your CI/CD pipeline to scan for images without alt attributes. Configure them to catch these patterns:

• Alt text containing only the words "image," "photo," or "picture"
• Alt text that matches the filename (a dead giveaway of autopilot mode)
• Alt text longer than 125 characters (usually a sign of description bloat)
• Decorative images that should have empty alt attributes but don't

Set these as blocking checks. When a developer tries to commit an image with "Banner_Hero_20260731.jpg" as the alt text, the pipeline stops and says "nice try, buddy." This is the regression testing equivalent of a bouncer checking IDs - it's annoying in the moment, but it prevents problems later.

Manual Testing (The Necessary Evil):

Automation catches patterns, but humans catch meaning. Build a regression test checklist that includes:

1. Disable images in your browser and read the page - does the content still make sense?
2. Use a screen reader (NVDA for Windows, VoiceOver for Mac, or JAWS if your org is fancy) and navigate through every image - does the alt text actually describe what you're looking at?
3. For images with text (infographics, screenshots, diagrams), verify that the text content is in the alt text or immediately accessible nearby
4. Check that decorative images have empty alt attributes (alt="") rather than being described

The key here is making this part of your actual regression workflow. When you deploy a new feature, when you redesign a page, when you update images - you test alt text quality the same way you test button clicks. It's not optional. It's not a nice-to-have. It's a regression you need to catch.

The Empty Alt Attribute Plot Twist

One wild thing that trips people up: sometimes the correct answer is an empty alt attribute. If an image is purely decorative - like a background flourish, a spacer, or a repeated icon next to text that already describes it - you actually want alt="". This tells assistive technology to skip it entirely, which is exactly what you want.

Your regression tests should verify that decorative images have empty alts, not missing alts. The technical difference matters.

Actually Do This Today

Pull up your site right now. Open your browser's inspector and search for images with alt="image" or alt attributes that match filenames. I'll wait. Bet you find at least three.

That's your regression testing starting point. Fix those, add them to your automated checks, document the pattern, and make sure your team knows why this matters. Your future self - and your users with screen readers - will appreciate it.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, professional, or compliance advice. SCOUTb2 is an automated scanning tool that helps identify common issues but does not guarantee full compliance with any standard or regulation.