What is alt text?

Alt text is a written description attached to an image that screen readers speak aloud when a user cannot see the image. WCAG 2.2 AA requires meaningful alt text on informative images, which on a Shopify store means every product photo, banner, and content image. Missing or useless alt text is one of the most cited failures in accessibility demand letters.

What good alt text looks like on a store

Good alt text conveys what a shopper needs to decide, not a filename. 'Red linen wrap dress, side tie detail, shown on model' helps a buyer. 'IMG_4023.jpg' or 'image' does not. Decorative images get empty alt attributes so screen readers skip them instead of reading noise.

Where Shopify alt text breaks

Product images entered without alt fields, theme sections that hardcode decorative images, app-injected badges and review photos with no descriptions, and alt text that describes the wrong variant after a swap. Bulk catalogs make this a data problem, which is why stores need scanning that reports every image missing usable text, template by template.

Why filers love it

Missing alt text is trivially detectable by automated scanners and easy to screenshot, which makes it a staple of demand letters. It is also cheap to fix at scale, so there is no good answer to why it was left broken.