Decision Tree

Okay, and that brings us to the old decision tree because everything I talked about, all

these different image types, they come together inside of this old decision tree.

And the idea is that you have different questions and they lead you to the decision on which

type of image this is and then what type of alternative text you want to have.

So the first question is, does the image contain text?

If no, you just continue to the next section.

And if yes, there is a little bit of like another tree, another distinction there.

Is the text also present as real text nearby?

So this is real text that I can just select and copy and paste.

If that's true, then you want to have the alt attribute empty.

If the text is only shown for visual effects, then you want to have an empty alt attribute.

So this would be something like a watermark or if you have like, I don't know, your Nike

and you have like a Nike pattern on the background of your page somewhere, you don't need to

put Nike, Nike, Nike, Nike, Nike into your website.

That would be terrible.

If the text has a specific function, you're in a functional image and you want to describe

what it does.

And if the text in the image is not there otherwise, you want to include the image text

into the alternative text or maybe do not use an image altogether.

Then the second question is if the image is used in link or button and would it be hard

or impossible to understand the link or the button, what those do, if the image wasn't

there.

If that's yes, then you want to use the alt attribute to describe the destination of the

link or the action that happens when you click the button.

question is, does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context? If yes, then you want

to use an old attribute in general. If it's complex, you also want to have like a detailed

description somewhere. If it does, but there's other alternative text, redundant alternative

real text nearby, then you want to keep the alt empty. And if it is purely decorative or not

intended for the user, then you want to use an empty alt attribute. So for example, if you have

a single pixel gif that you use as a tracking device, you can do that. And that you don't want

people to like stumble over it. So an empty alt attribute is the right thing.

And if you still don't know into which categories it goes, then you might need to read through the whole tutorial.

Yeah, which, you know, makes sense.

Thank you.