Success Criterion 2.4.4
Conformance level A
W3C reference F89

Image-Only Link or Button With No Accessible Name

2.4.4 — Link Purpose (In Context)

Scenario

Setting

A hotel booking site's room-selection page

What’s wrong

A link or button whose only content is an image has no accessible name — screen readers announce 'link' with no clue where it goes.

Example

<a href="/report.pdf">Click here</a>

Why it matters

People who browse by links list or voice commands and need unambiguous link purposes.

How to test

Check a link/button whose only content is an image: inspect its accessible name in DevTools — if empty or generic ('link', 'image'), it fails.

How to fix

Give the image inside the link/button alt text that states the destination or action.

<a href="/report.pdf">Download the Q3 financial report (PDF)</a>

Link text needs to describe its destination on its own, without relying on surrounding sentence context.

Outcome

On a hotel booking site's room-selection page, this barrier is gone for people who browse by links list or voice commands and need unambiguous link purposes — they can finish what they came here to do.

Who is affected