Alt Text and Captions: Using AI to Make Your Content Accessible

Do people who can't see your photos, or can't hear your videos, get the same message as everyone else? Alt text and captions make sure they do. Here's a plain-English starting point, based on the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) pages, checked on Oct 28, 2026.

Alt text for images. The WAI says images must have text alternatives that describe the information or function they represent. A few of its rules of thumb:

• Informative images: give at least a short description of the essential information, like "Blue ceramic mug with a wooden handle."
• Decorative images: if an image only adds decoration, the WAI says to give it an empty alt text (alt="").
• Buttons and links: describe what it does, not what it looks like, like "Print" instead of "printer icon."
• Images of text: the WAI says to avoid text in images unless it's a logo, and if you use it, the alt text should contain the same words.

Captions for videos. The WAI says captions are a text version of the speech and non-speech audio needed to understand a video, and they're used by people who are Deaf and by people who process written information better than audio. Its captions page also has a section called "Automatic Captions are Not Sufficient."

Where AI helps:

• Drafting alt text for a batch of product photos, which you then check and fix.
• Making a first-draft caption file or transcript from a video, which you then correct.

Where you still need to check:

• Names, prices, and product details the AI can't see or might guess.
• Captions: fix misheard words, speaker names, and important sounds.

A quick checklist:

• Does every informative image have alt text that says what matters?
• Are decorative images marked as decorative?
• Do videos have checked captions?
• Is any text in images also in the page text?

Start small: add alt text to your homepage and your top five product photos this week.