The Essentials

Let's think about jam for a moment. If you were in the supermarket and you saw a jar of jam. You would want to know several things, firstly that it is jam, it might look like jam, but it could be something else entirely. Is just knowing it's jam enough information ? Nope.

You wouldn't be happy if this label simply said, 'red jam' inside. Red jam could mean strawberry jam, raspberry jam. These distinctions are important, no one wants the wrong thing on their toast in the morning.

Now imagine the person in the supermarket is visually impaired. The detail in the label becomes even more critical, so when they pick the jar off the shelf, they know precisely what they have in their hands.

Alt tags and Jam Jar labels have a lot in common. Alt tags are simply labels for your images which need to be as descriptive and logical as possible so that anyone viewing your site knows what the images contain. This is so that everyone using your site comes away with the same level of understanding.

Every user is different, they may have visual impairment, or they could simply have a poor internet connection. A good Alt Tag, means you website is adaptable and therefore accessible, to as many users as possible.