Decorative image

A decorative image serves only an aesthetic purpose - it adds no information and has no function. Backgrounds, flourishes, and spacers are typical examples.

Decorative images should be hidden from assistive technology by giving them an empty alt text (alt=\"\") or a role=\"presentation\" attribute, so screen reader users are not slowed down by content that tells them nothing. Leaving the alt attribute off entirely is not the same thing: some screen readers fall back to reading the image's file name aloud when alt is missing rather than empty.

Learn more

• Understanding Non-text Content - the WCAG success criterion covering decorative content
• Images Tutorial: Decorative Images - the W3C WAI tutorial
• Alt text