Editorial Board
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14 July 2026
Alternative text (alt text): what it is and how to write it
Alt text is the very first success criterion in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): Success Criterion 1.1.1, "Non-text Content," requires that every piece of non-text content have an equivalent text alternative.
Introduction
This Privacy Notice aims to clearly and transparently explain which personal data we collect when you visit our website, why we collect it, how we use it, and what Your rights are.
We process your personal data in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and applicable national data protection laws. We are committed to ensuring that all processing activities are carried out in accordance with the principles of lawfulness, fairness, transparency, data minimization, integrity, and confidentiality.
Specifically, in this notice you will find information about:
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which data we collect about you and for what purposes;
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the legal bases on which we process such data;
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who we may share your data with;
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how long we retain your data;
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your rights and how to exercise them.
While we sometimes need Your data for example, to respond to your requests or improve our website), we do so with respect, care and only when truly necessary.
Our Privacy Promises
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We deeply value your privacy, and for this reason, we guarantee that:
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We treat your data as if it were our own.
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We use your data only for the purposes outlined in this notice.
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We retain your data only for as long as strictly necessary.
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We do not share your data with third parties without a valid legal basis or your explicit consent.
1. Who Processes Your Personal Data
The Data Controller — that is, the entity that determines the purposes and means of the processing of Your personal data — is AccessiWay S.a.S., with registered office at 7 Rue du Général Henrion Bertier, 92200 Neuilly-sur-Sein registered with the Nanterre Trade and Companies Register under number 914 022 595.
AccessiWay is part of the team.blue group and, in certain cases, acts as joint controller together with team.blue NV, with registered office at Skaldenstraat 121, 9042 Ghent, Belgium. In this context, Your personal data may be shared within the group for statistical, administrative, operational, and service improvement purposes.
AccessiWay and team.blue have defined their respective roles and responsibilities under a joint controllership agreement pursuant to Article 26 of the GDPR, ensuring full compliance with data protection regulations.
For more information regarding joint controllership or to exercise Your rights, you may contact AccessiWay via email at the following email addresses:
📧 legal.fr@accessiway.com or info@accessiway.com.
2. Who This Privacy Notice Applies To
This notice applies to:
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users who browse the website www.accessiway.com,
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individuals who contact us through the form available on the website or via email;
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users who interact with tools we have implemented (e.g. widgets, cookies);
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individuals who, through the website or other channels, access external platforms or third-party entities through which they may submit a job application (e.g. recruiting portals or employment agencies).
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In such cases, the privacy notices of the third parties involved — independent from AccessiWay — also apply.
3. What Data We Process
To manage your interaction with our website, we may process the following categories of personal data:
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Identification and contact details such as name, surname, company, job title, email address, and phone number.
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These data may be partially processed through our customer relationship management (CRM) system.
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Data relating to your interaction with our services such as information collected via the website or through Hubspot, such as communication history, preferences, requests, and commercial or technical notes.
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Technical data such as IP address, device type, operating system, browser, access times, and other data automatically recorded by our systems or servers.
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Browsing data and preferences such as collected via cookies or similar technologies, in accordance with the choices expressed through the cookie consent banner.
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Application data such as personal information included in your CV or other documents submitted through third-party platforms (e.g. professional experience, education, contact details).
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These data are processed by AccessiWay only after being transmitted by the third party, which remains autonomous in the initial processing.
4. Purposes and Legal Basis of Processing
We process Your personal data in compliance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and applicable national data protection laws. Your data may be processed for the following purposes:
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Technical operation of the website
We process technical data, using technical cookies and similar tools, to allow You to access the site, view it correctly, and ensure it functions properly (e.g. browsing, content loading, storing preferences).
📌Legal basis: this processing is necessary to provide a service requested by the user, pursuant to Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR. Your consent is not required for these cookies.
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Handling contact or support requests
When you send us a request — via the contact form or by email — we process your data to respond and provide the information requested.
📌 Legal basis: this processing is necessary to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract, pursuant to Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR.
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Compliance with legal obligations
In certain cases, we may need to process your data to comply with legal obligations, such as tax, accounting, or IT security requirements.
📌 Legal basis: this processing is based on compliance with a legal obligation, pursuant to Article 6(1)(c) of the GDPR.
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Statistical analysis and website improvement
We use analytical tools (e.g. analytical cookies) to collect aggregated data in order to understand how the website is used and to improve its content and functionality.
📌 Legal basis: we process this data only with your freely given and specific consent, pursuant to Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR.
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Marketing and Profiling
If you authorize us to do so, we may use your data to send you promotional communications or provide personalized content (e.g. through profiling cookies).
📌 Legal basis: this processing is carried out only with your explicit consent, pursuant to Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR. You may withdraw your consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
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Management of job applications through third parties
We may receive job applications via third-party platforms (e.g. job portals) or through recruitment agencies. In such cases, we process the submitted data to assess your suitability for the proposed role.
📌 Legal basis: this processing is necessary to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract, pursuant to Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR.
Note: the privacy policies of the third-party platforms or agencies involved also apply, independently of AccessiWay.
5. Cookies and Tracking Tools
This website uses a cookie management system provided by iubenda, which allows you to:
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view a full and transparent list of the cookies in use;
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modify or withdraw your consent at any time;
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access the complete Cookie Policy, integrated in the cookie widget.
You can manage your preferences by clicking on the cookie widget icon located at the bottom left corner of every page on the site.
Technical cookies are necessary and therefore enabled by default. Other non-essential cookies (analytical, profiling) are only enabled with your consent.
For more information, please refer to the full Cookie Policy accessible from the cookie widget.
6. Use of accessWidget
This website integrates accessWidget, an automated accessibility tool developed by accessiBe Ltd. and distributed by AccessiWay. The widget allows users to personalize their browsing experience based on their needs.
When the user activates the widget, their IP address is technically transmitted, but:
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it is not stored, tracked, or associated with identifiable individuals;
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it is anonymized via a proxy located in the European Union;
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it is not used for profiling or marketing purposes.
📌 Legal basis: provision of a service requested by the user (Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR).
7. Data Security
We adopt appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security, integrity, and confidentiality of the personal data we process. These measures are designed to prevent unauthorized access, loss, disclosure, or alteration of your data. In particular, we implement:
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secure connections via HTTPS (SSL/TLS);
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authentication systems and access control;
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access limitation and internal access tracking mechanisms;
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regular audits and verification procedures;
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continuous updates to systems and security measures according to the level of risk.
8. Data Retention
Your personal data is stored only for the time strictly necessary to achieve the purposes for which it was collected. Specifically:
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Contact data: up to 10 years if relevant for contractual or legal purposes;
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Technical and browsing data: according to what is outlined in the Cookie Policy;
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Marketing data: until consent is withdrawn.
9. Your Rights (Data Subject Rights)
As a data subject, you may exercise the rights provided under Articles 15–22 of the GDPR at any time. In particular, you have the right to:
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Obtain confirmation as to whether or not your personal data is being processed and access such data (right of access);
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Request the rectification of inaccurate personal data or the completion of incomplete data (right to rectification);
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Request the erasure of your data, if the conditions set out in the GDPR are met (right to erasure);
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Obtain restriction of processing where applicable (right to restriction);
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Object to the processing of your data, in whole or in part, under certain circumstances (right to object);
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Receive your data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and, where technically feasible, have it transmitted directly to another controller (right to data portability);
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Withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
📧 You can exercise Your rights at any time by contacting us at: legal.fr@accessiway.com.
🔗 If you are located in France and believe that the processing of your personal data violates applicable law, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the French Data Protection Authority (Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés – CNIL) via the website: www.cnil.fr.
*If you have difficulty accessing our form, please feel free to contact us. Send an e-mail to info@accessiway.com
What is alternative text (alt text)
Alternative text, or alt text, is a short text description attached to an image through the alt attribute of the HTML <img> tag. When an image can't be seen the alt text stands in for it and carries the same information to someone who would otherwise miss it entirely.
The point most people get wrong is that alt text doesn't describe what an image looks like, it describes what the image means in context: what it communicates, what function it serves, why it's there at all.
Alt text has existed since 1999, in the very first version of WCAG, and yet it remains one of the most neglected elements in modern web development despite how technically simple it is to add.
How alternative text works for screen readers
The text lives in the alt attribute, which normally isn't visible on the page itself.
A screen reader reads it aloud when it reaches the image in the page's reading order, so someone who can't see the image still learns what it shows or does, at exactly the point a sighted reader would encounter it.
If the image is also a link or a button, the alt text needs to describe the resulting action, not the visual appearance: a magnifying-glass icon used to search a site needs alt text like "Search the site," not "Magnifying glass icon."
Screen readers already announce on their own that an element is a link or a button, so repeating "link" or "click here" inside the alt text is redundant and should be avoided.
When the alt attribute is missing entirely — not empty, simply absent — many screen readers fall back to reading the file name instead, often an unhelpful string like IMG_4021.jpg or a long auto-generated upload path. That's bad UX because it adds noise without giving the listener any useful information.
How to write good alt text: best practices
Writing good alt text means picturing someone who will never see the image while the page is read aloud to them.
Here are some best practices:
Describe the image's purpose in context: for an image illustrating a concept, describe the concept, not the framing or colors.
Keep it short: usually one sentence, often within 125 characters, since some screen readers cut off longer text and an overly detailed alt text slows down listening.
Skip phrases like "image of" or "picture of": the tag itself already tells assistive tech this is an image, so restating it wastes useful space.
Don't repeat information already given in the surrounding text or caption: if a product photo already sits next to the product name in a paragraph, the alt text can focus on a different, complementary detail instead.
If the image contains text — a promotional banner, a logo with wording — repeat that text verbatim in the alt attribute so a listener gets the same information a reader gets.
End the alt text with a period: most screen readers pause briefly at punctuation, naturally separating the description from whatever content follows.
Alt text for specific cases
Not every image behaves the same way, and a few recurring categories call for handling that goes beyond the general rules above.
Alt text for decorative images
When an image adds no information to the content, the correct attribute isn't to omit alt, but to set it explicitly empty: alt="". Screen readers recognize this pattern and skip the image silently, while a missing attribute often forces them to read the file name instead, information with no value to the listener.
Alt text for charts and infographics
For complex visuals like charts, maps, or infographics, a one-sentence alt text rarely captures everything relevant. The standard approach is a brief alt summarizing the main takeaway — the chart type and the general trend in the data, for instance — paired with a fuller description in the surrounding text or an equivalent HTML data table, so someone who can't see the image gets the same data.
Alt text for logos and buttons
Logos are never purely decorative: they should always be described, spelling out any meaningful text or symbol they contain, such as "[Company] logo with the tagline [tagline]." For buttons and controls represented by an icon, the alt text should describe the action the button performs when activated, not the icon itself: "Print the document," not "Printer icon."
Alt text and image SEO
Beyond its accessibility role, alt text is also a signal search engines use to understand what an image shows because despite advances in automated image recognition, they still rely heavily on text and metadata to classify and index images in dedicated search (Google Images).
Well-written alt text can therefore support ranking for both the image and the page that contains it, giving crawlers extra context about the topic at hand.
That benefit doesn't justify keyword stuffing, though: cramming alt text with repeated keywords ("dog puppy labrador retriever cheap dog food") adds no real accessibility value and is treated by Google's algorithms as a spam signal, working against the ranking it's meant to help. The right approach stays a concise, accurate description that naturally includes one or two relevant keywords only when they genuinely describe the image.
How many sites still have missing alt text: the WebAIM Million 2026 data
Missing alt text remains one of the most common accessibility failures on the web, despite how technically simple it is to fix.
According to the WebAIM Million 2026 report, which analyzes the home pages of the top one million sites worldwide, 53.1% of home pages have at least one image missing alt text, and 16.2% of all sampled images lack it entirely out of an average of 66.6 images per home page, up 13.6% in a single year.
Among images that do have alt text, 10.8% contain questionable or repetitive descriptions, such as "image," "graphic," or a raw file name.
That places missing alt text among the six most common accessibility failures the report tracks, a ranking that has stayed essentially unchanged for seven consecutive years: a sign this is a well-known problem.
Alt text under WCAG and the EAA
Alt text is the very first success criterion in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): Success Criterion 1.1.1, "Non-text Content," requires that every piece of non-text content have an equivalent text alternative. Precisely because it's one of the easiest requirements to check automatically, it's also one of the most frequently cited issues in US web accessibility litigation.
In Europe, alt text falls under the obligations set out in the European Accessibility Act (EAA), enforceable since 28 June 2025 for a wide range of digital products and services, which explicitly points to WCAG conformance as its reference standard.
FAQ about alternative text
Does every image need alt text?
No, purely decorative images can carry an empty alt="" attribute. It's required for informative images, buttons, image-based links, and anything that conveys meaning.
How long should alt text be?
Usually one sentence, often within 125 characters, since some screen readers cut off longer text. For complex images like charts, a short alt plus a fuller description elsewhere works better than one long alt attribute.
Does alt text help with SEO too?
Yes, alongside accessibility, alt text helps search engines understand what an image shows, which supports ranking in image search. It should be written for people, not stuffed with keywords.
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