Over all, they explain whether or not to include an alt description; and what to write in the alt description. The second article provides a nice decision tree.
I’ve so far used a similar but simpler approach, described in this stackoverflow answer:
For a majority of illustrative images, where associated description could benefit sighted users too, put the image inside a figure, and describe it with a figcaption. The alt attribute becomes redundant in that case. The posted article and its source study describes well what to put in the figcaption as description.
Functional images, or actionable images, like one used as a link or a button, should be given an alt attribute. The description should pretty much describe the action.
The author probably forgot to link to the NNGroup source study that they referred to in the article:
Over all, they explain whether or not to include an
altdescription; and what to write in thealtdescription. The second article provides a nice decision tree.I’ve so far used a similar but simpler approach, described in this stackoverflow answer:
For a majority of illustrative images, where associated description could benefit sighted users too, put the image inside a
figure, and describe it with afigcaption. Thealtattribute becomes redundant in that case. The posted article and its source study describes well what to put in thefigcaptionas description.Functional images, or actionable images, like one used as a link or a button, should be given an
altattribute. The description should pretty much describe the action.