Dear Dia11y: Decorative & functional images

Originally posted on https://dear-dia11y.com/decorative-and-functional-images.html.

Dear dia11y,

There have been times in the past where I've used what I'll momentarily call "helper images" like user avatars, button icons, and illustrations, and in trying to make them more accessible, I've given them alternative text like "user avatar" and "rubbish bin". While I should almost always accurately describe and label images, there are times when it's safe for me to mark images as decorative or provide a functional label instead of alternative text.

For my future reference, the W3 website has a few good articles on these subjects:

• WAI Decorative Images
• WAI Functional Images
• WAI Images Tips & Tricks

I'm leaving myself some notes and examples on these subjects below.

Decorative images

If I have an image that doesn't add any extra content to the page, I can probably assume that this image is decorative.

A great example would be user avatars right next to user names (see example just below).

I probably shouldn't label these images "avatar", "user avatar" or even "avatar for ${userName}", for labels like these don't describe the content of the images and therefore likely cannot describe them in a way that adds valuable content to the document.

If I have a list of users with their avatars and names but no explicit descriptions of their avatars, what is the point of announcing "avatar" for each user?

Instead, I can provide an alt attribute of "" to tell assistive technologies that I want to ignore this image.

<li ...>
  <img
    alt=""
    class="..."
    height="60"
    src="..."
    width="60"
  />
  <span>Robert W. Pearce</span>
</li>

If this image is an SVG or any other type of decorative element that might get picked up by a screen reader, I can use aria-hidden="true" to completely hide it from the screen reader, or I can use role="presentation" to effectively set role="none" and remove any existing semantics (I prefer the former approach).

Functional images

There are times when I want to use images as visual aids to accompany actionable text like "Delete email", or perhaps I only want to present an image, but I really intend for that image to mean "Delete email" — note to self: this is called a functional image.

Here is an HTML summary of the example above:

<button type="button" ...>
  <svg aria-hidden="true" ...>
    <!-- ... -->
  </svg>
  <span>Delete email</span>
</button>

The only thing of note is that I have aria-hidden="true" on the <svg>.

While it could be argued that narrating "button, rubbish bin image, Delete email" could give some added context, the image is intended as a visual aid, and labelling it seems to add a bit of noise, distracting from the simple point of what this does: "button, Delete email".

What if I want to only use the image, but I intend for it to mean "Delete email"?

Here is an HTML summary of the example above:

<button aria-label="Delete email" type="button" ...>
  <svg aria-hidden="true" ...>
    <!-- ... -->
  </svg>
</button>

In addition to having aria-hidden="true" on the <svg>, instead of the text node being there, there is an aria-label="Delete email" on the surrounding <button> element. This button will also narrate, "button, Delete email".

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That's it for decorative and functional images for today!

Yours,

Robert W. Pearce