New regulations mean that public sector organisations have a legal duty to make their websites and mobile apps accessible by making them perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 became UK law in September 2018 and aim to make online public services accessible for everyone, including those with disabilities.

Image Captions/Alt Text is the text that describes images and can be read by screen readers to someone who may be visually impaired.  Don't worry if you haven't yet got round to adding Alt Text, as our editor makes this process easy by allowing you to scroll through all of your images to add the Alt Text so that you don't have to locate them on every single page. Click here to learn how to do this.

If an image is purely decorative, the alt text should be empty. However, it is still a requirement to have the Alt attribute (without any text). To add empty Alt text, you would just type a pair of quotation marks, as follows “”.

There is a partial exemption for schools and nurseries. However, they must make sure that the content of their websites or apps relating to essential online administrative functions is made accessible. ‘Essential online content’ has not been legally defined, but could include content that the public (i.e. pupils and parents) need to use to access school/nursery services.