• Success Criterion 1.1.1
  • Conformance level A
  • W3C reference F39

Decorative Image Given Alt Text Instead of Being Marked Silent

1.1.1 — Non-text Content

Scenario

Setting

A fashion e-commerce site's checkout page

What’s wrong

A decorative image is given alt text like 'spacer' or 'image' instead of empty alt — screen readers announce meaningless words.

Example 

<img src="checkout-spacer.gif" alt="image">

Why it matters

A shopper checking out hears "image, image, image" between every form field, drowning out the labels they actually need.

How to test

Listen with a screen reader: if a decorative image announces 'spacer image' or 'graphic' instead of being silently skipped, the alt text is non-null when it should be empty.

How to fix

Replace filler words like "image" or "spacer" with an empty alt. "Image" is worse than no alt at all: it's a confirmed-meaningless word read aloud on every visit.

<img src="checkout-spacer.gif" alt="">

Outcome

A shopper tabs through checkout and hears only the fields that matter, with no meaningless interruptions.

Who is affected

Screen reader users moving through a multi-step checkout are more likely to miss a required field amid the noise.

Learn more

Related scenarios