Image

When to use

• Content that is genuinely an image, such as a screenshot, a photograph or an illustration.
• Anywhere the picture carries information the surrounding text does not.

When not to use

• An icon. That is an icon, which inherits colour and scales with text.
• A logo. That is a logo, which has its own rules.
• Decoration that adds nothing. An image that says nothing still costs the reader time to load and skip.

Content

What to write, and what to leave out.

• Write the alt text as what the image says, not as what it is. A queue with four unassigned conversations, not Screenshot.
• Use an empty alt for a purely decorative image, so a screen reader passes over it rather than announcing a filename.
• Do not start with Image of. The reader is already told it is an image.