Describing images

Missing alt text is usually the single largest category of finding on a site that has never been checked, and it is also the one automation can do least about, because the correct text depends on what the image is for.

The Images screen

Scan & Fix → Images lists every image in your media library that has never been described, with a field beside each one. Type, save, move on.

This is the whole point of the screen. Describing forty images through the media library means opening forty screens. Here it is one.

Where the text is saved

In WordPress’s own alt text field on the media item. Not in a table belonging to this plugin.

That means your alt text:

• applies everywhere that image is used, not only on the page you were looking at
• works with every theme and every other plugin
• stays behind if you remove this plugin

This is the one place the plugin writes outside its own override layer, and it is deliberate. Alt text is content, it belongs to you, and it should not evaporate when a plugin is deactivated.

Writing alt text that helps

The plugin will not write it for you. There is no AI here and nothing is generated, because a plausible description of an image the machine cannot understand is worse than an empty one — you would have no way of knowing which descriptions were wrong.

What tends to work:

Describe the purpose, not the picture. If an image illustrates a point, say the point. If it is a product, name the product.

Leave out “image of” and “picture of”. A screen reader already says it is an image.

Keep it short. A sentence is usually enough. The plugin flags alt text that runs long, because an over-long description is its own barrier.

Do not repeat the caption. If the text beside the image already says it, the alt text is duplication, and there is a check for that.

Do not use the filename. There is a check for that too, because DSC_00412.jpg read aloud is noise.

Decorative images

An image that carries no information — a divider, a background flourish, a spacer — should have an empty alt attribute, alt="". That is a deliberate statement that the image can be skipped.

The plugin distinguishes between the two cases:

Situation	Reported?
alt=""	No. This is valid and deliberate.
No alt attribute at all	Yes. A screen reader is left to guess, and most read the filename.

So marking a decorative image as decorative is a real fix, not a way of dodging the check.

Related checks

Check	What it catches
img-alt-missing	No alt attribute at all
img-alt-is-filename	Alt text that is just the file name
img-alt-redundant	Alt text repeating nearby text
img-alt-too-long	Descriptions long enough to be their own obstacle
input-image-alt-missing	Image buttons with no name
image-map-area-alt-missing	Image map areas with no name