Decide What Each Image Actually Needs Before You Write a Single Alt Text — Free
Most alt text is written badly for one reason: the writer never decided what the image is for. A decorative divider gets a sentence describing a squiggle; a screenshot of a pricing table gets 'pricing table' when the numbers are the point. This board makes the decision first — one row per image, marked against what it is doing — and puts the undecided rows at the top, because those are the ones a screen reader user meets as silence.
The proof surface
Free path: the board computes locally in the browser with no key and no account. Where an AI step helps, any free chat assistant works — Google AI Studio's free tier and Groq's free tier were both no-card and rate-limited when this page was reviewed on 2026-09-13 (limits change; check before you rely on them).
Why the flat version breaks
A checklist of images tells you which ones are missing alt text, which is not the same question. An image can have alt text and still be wrong: a decorative banner described at length, or a chart summarised as 'chart'. Classifying the job each image does is what makes the alt text obvious, and it exposes the rows nobody has classified at all.
How to use the image decision board in four passes
Dividers, textures, backgrounds and icons belong on the board. The point is not to find the missing alt text but to make a decision for each image, including the decision that it needs none.
An image can do several at once: a screenshot of a pricing table is informative, contains visible text, and is a data visualisation. Multiple marks are a signal that a one-line alt text will not carry it.
Undecided rows and multi-job rows sit at the left. Those are the images where a screen reader user either gets silence or gets a sentence that misses the content — the two failures that matter.
Decorative rows get alt="" — not a description. Rows marked complex get a long description beside the image, not a longer alt attribute. Re-run the board after writing so the audit reflects what shipped.
SAMPLE DATA, NOT A VERIFIED CLAIM: Homepage · audited 22 Sep 2026 · eleven images · four decorative, three informative, two charts, one undecided · the map of depots needs a long description. Replace these values with your own source before you rely on anything.
What breaks first
Marking everything informative to be safe
Over-described decorative images are noise read aloud on every page. A divider that gets a sentence is a worse experience than one that gets nothing.
Describing a chart in one alt attribute
A chart marked 5 and 6 needs the data as text — a table, a summary beside it, or a long description. Cramming twelve data points into 125 characters loses all of them.
Leaving the undecided row undecided
An empty row on this board is an image a screen reader user will meet as an unlabelled graphic or a filename. Decide, then write; guessing at the keyboard is how 'IMG_4471.jpg' ends up read aloud.
What you pay otherwise
| The usual route | What it leaves out | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| An automated alt-text generator | A caption for every image, including the decorative ones, with no classification behind it | per-image fees and a second audit to undo it |
| An accessibility consultancy audit | Thorough, but scheduled weeks away and priced per page | a four-figure report |
| Fixing it after a complaint | The audit happens anyway, on somebody else's timetable | a remediation deadline |
| This page + the free image decision board | Computed in your tab, result on screen before you type anything | $0 |
Try the free image decision board
Eleven homepage images are already classified against the six-job key, with the undecided background texture pinned to the Now column. Clear its marks and it moves back to Now; mark it 4 and it parks.
Open the free image decision board →Keep the work if you will use it again
Every image, the six-job key, the three columns and the undecided flags, plus copy and share-link, with no account.
The on-screen result is free and repeatable forever. The one-time tier adds a tangible file you keep and the saved history that comes with it; it never removes or degrades the free result.
Boundary: This organises an audit of the images you list; it does not read your page, it cannot see the images, and it is not a conformance statement. Check the final markup against WCAG 1.1.1 and your own organisation's accessibility statement before you claim anything is fixed.