What is "Alt Text"?
Alt text is a text that represents an image that is spoken out loud by screen readers for users with visual disabilities.
The term alt text likely comes from the HTML attribute alt that is found in the image element (img). For example:
<img src="cat.jpeg" alt="A drawing of a cat.">The HTML code above tells the web browser to display an image located by the relative URL cat.jpeg, and, if a screen reader is screen reading, the alternative text to read instead of the image will be "A drawing of a cat.".
Alt text used to be a term solely used by developers in the HTML code for creating web pages, however, with the increase of awareness about accessibility issues and widespread use of social media, some social media platforms now allow users to write an "alt text" for images they upload. For example, Pinterest.