Accessibility finding
The alternative text says almost the same as the caption
Accessibility Warning Severity: Low
Part of the audit Alternative text contradicts its surroundings. Finding id: accessibility.altVsCaption.
What it costs you
Screen reader users hear the same sentence twice and still do not learn what the picture shows.
What to do
Worth checking; we assume the caption is the careful text. Let the alt describe what is visible and the caption give the context. If the caption already says everything, leave the alt empty.
What it checks
- Description repeats or contradicts caption
How to fix it
Split the work between alt and caption
How to check: Recrawl the page: the image is no longer reported.
A real case
In WebAIM's 2026 scan of the top one million home pages, 10.8% of the images that had alternative text had questionable or repetitive text, and one in four linked images had none.
Thresholds
| Name | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
caption_similarity | 0.8 | Word overlap (0 to 1) between alt and caption from which the alt counts as a repeat. |
How to verify by hand
A person; an image model as a hint only.
What this relies on
The caption and the link target were written with more care than the alt text.