After analyzing the Alt Text of hundreds of websites, I picked up a trend.  

Alt Text is often a quiet indicator of how deeply a site is designed with cognition in mind.  And that pattern is getting harder to ignore.  

This article shows how Alt Text is often treated as compliance and the ‘how to’ shift into  the modern way of serving consumers or businesses with their SEO strategies.  

It’s something else entirely.  

° ° °

Deep into my career, I developed a special interest in consumer psychology.  After 40,000+ hours working clinically with just about every brain out there, patterns  started to emerge.  

Not just in how people think.  

But in how they likely process, stay and decide on websites.  

Around 2023, as Neuroaccessibility guidelines began showing up in the web world,  something became clear.  

No one quite knows what to do with it. 

Websites are rarely in fact designed to minimize:  

Cognitive load  

Navigation friction  

Mental Strain  

° ° °

Web designers know the law:  

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 (2018), as defined by the Web 

Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), provides a framework for reducing barriers for  users with visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments.  

But it goes further than that.  

Vision Health Research via the World Health Organization (WHO) discovered: vision  impairments affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide, often limiting  access to detail, contrast or full visual fields.  

Like my cousin who has such poor eye sight, she still has to squint through corrective  lenses.  

Or my color-blind roommate in graduate school.

Or myself for example as well. Photosensitivity makes me drop my eye lids to block the full blast of blue light from any device.   

° ° °

Neuroaccessibility is being considered even less... online and off-line.

Articles are a dense chunk of text (notice the style of this one).  

Government websites are nearly impossible to navigate without a rapid onset of bad  mood.  

Like highway or airport signs, or even something simple like menus at a restaurant.  

Commonly a seamless information-gathering experience in which one can self-select  which section to target with minimal navigation effort to identify, decode the next step or to purchase that meal  

Current Neuroaccessibility grossly lacks this goal for many, often telling the waiter ‘give me 5 more minutes to decide’.  

Alt Text is a good representation of where websites are lacking cognitive accountability to reach users and potential customers.  

Beautiful, tasteful designs.  

Clearly masterful technicians.  

The standards of practice are there.  

Unfortunately, frustrated consumers and money left on the table for the business.  Website UX is still designed for the what and why we consume information.  

Yet underwhelming on the how. 

So here’s how with Alt Text.  

° ° °

A note about WCAG compliance:  

It’s okay to have no Alt Text when an image is purely decorative.  

For example:  

A soft abstract background.  

A color gradient behind a headline.  

A stock image of a smiling team that does not convey specific information.  Visually, it contributes to the atmosphere.  

No Alt Text like this preserves the mental energy needed for a more meaningful  experience because the consumer doesn’t have to strain to fill in the missing pieces.  

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021) found: Perceived and  unnecessary mental effort accounts for a significant portion of avoidance  behavior in decision tasks, with measurable drops in engagement rates exceeding  25%.  

This could account for a percent of those elusive bounce rates.  

° ° °

Meanwhile, it’s necessary (and ethical) to have detailed Alt Text when an image is  curated to be largely functional. In other words, length is unlimited here.  

For example:  

A product photo showing the exact features being sold.  

A before-and-after that makes you think “oh wow, that’s impressive.”  A team leaning over a laptop at the moment the product finally works, conveying a  competent team made this.  

Rich Alt Text reduces unreasonable cognitive load, a symptom likely leading to a prevention of conversion rates.  

° ° °

So why might Alt Text be missing the point?  

Alt Text is first and foremost a visual accessibility tool. It exists for screen readers, broken images, and any moment when the image itself cannot be seen. 

It is not, by itself, a Neuroaccessibility tool.

But the thinking behind better Alt Text still overlaps with Neurodigital Design. The same principles that make Alt Text useful, clarity, relevance, context, meaning over noise, also reduce cognitive strain and support better comprehension.

So the point is not to pretend Alt Text does a different job.
The point is to recognize that when it is written with care, it reflects the same design values:

Make the experience easier to understand 

Easier to process 

and more useful to the person on the other side.

Unfortunately, carefully curated Alt Text is not a common training in the UX and content writing world.  

In fact, it’s not often trained in the WCAG compliance world either.

It’s been passive compliance.

A nod to visual challenges.

Checkbox.

Release.

And often, it’s not done at all. 

Businesses often assume there is no legal risk, their audience doesn’t need it and Alt  Text won’t impact conversions. 

Businesses often assume there is no legal risk, their audience doesn’t need it and Alt Text won’t impact conversions. 

That assumption misses the larger point: when Alt Text is written with the same clarity, relevance, and contextual thinking that drives Neurodigital Design, it becomes more useful to the consumer and more effective for the business.  

° ° °

Introducing Larry:  

He is a CFO of a financial company in the city, but for this case, we are focusing on his needs as a protective and investment-conscious father who is looking to research a new car for his  young adult son.  

He heard good things about Toyota Corolla. So, he opens his laptop  

And oh no, the psychology is already happening.  

Larry has limited vision and relies heavily on his peripheral sight, which means he approaches most websites with caution.

He already knows the pattern: too many interfaces turn a simple task into instant friction and a fast slide into frustration.

That friction adds cognitive load. Cognitive load feeds stress, stress sharpens anxiety, and now the clock is part of the problem too: he has a meeting in 15 minutes.

His screen reader handles the basic content well enough. That part is familiar.

But car shopping is not just about specs and paragraphs. The visuals matter. Details matter. Shape, features, finishes, proportions, what the car actually looks like. That is part of the decision-making process.

And that is exactly where Larry is usually left out.

° ° °  

Ethically, image selection must start with this simple question:  

“Is this image decoration or serving a job function for the goals of this business?”  If it’s decoration - skip Alt Text.  

If it’s a function - proceed with conscientious Alt Text.  

After all, “vision impairments that affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide,  often limiting access to detail, contrast or full visual fields.”  

° ° ° 

Back to Larry, what he might hear (see) from his screen reader: 

“Image of Toyota Hybrid SE AWD shown in Ruby Flare Pearl”.  

Imagine Larry’s psychological friction?  

Disrespected.  

Disheartened.  

Instant bad mood.  

And… he has that meeting in, now, 10 minutes.  

So he thinks: “I already read that, I need the visual! Seats, dashboard, color of inside,  sense of comfort, wheels!”  

The Alt Text is technically correct.  

No legal risk with WCAG.  

But is it - useful - on behalf of the business and consumer?  

So Larry, planning to quickly decide that day, leaves the page, in the hopes to have better luck with a Honda Accord, instead.  

Now imagine the Honda creative team updated their neurointelligence?  A skill I coined where Neuroaccessibility is internalized as design with manners.  

The son is driving to the concert that night in his “I love dad Honda.”  

° ° °  

Human–Computer Interaction research shows: frustration increases cognitive load  and reduces task persistence, making people more likely to abandon a task  altogether. 

So let’s decode what Larry heard through his screen reader:  

“Deep, glossy black 4-door Honda Accord with a smooth, balanced body that feels  purposeful rather than flashy, giving an immediate sense of reliability.  Inside, grey upholstered bucket seats with visible legroom, a seated passenger’s legs  comfortably positioned with space to stretch, suggesting ease on longer drives.  The dashboard is clean and clearly organized, with a well-placed speedometer behind  the steering wheel and a centered display that appears intuitive and easy to use.  Controls sit naturally within reach, creating a sense of familiarity rather than complexity.  The overall impression is a car designed for function, comfort, and consistency,  reflecting a long-standing reputation for dependable, everyday use.  A female driver sits confidently behind the wheel, relaxed and in control, reinforcing a  feeling of safety, stability, and trust.”

Now he can picture it.  

Now he can feel it.  

Now he can decide.  

Now his son drove it off the lot.  

That image is doing five jobs at once.  

And the Alt Text is doing it too.  

° ° °  

A note about Alt Text length:  

It’s okay to keep Alt Text short when an image is minimally functional. For instance the  image of a “Toyota dealership with a welcoming agent in front".  

Because nothing is being asked of the user in that moment and extra detail creates  unnecessary cognitive work with no return.  

Conversely, when the image leads to a buying decision, Alt Text needs detail.  

This ensures no mental strain. This also facilitates brand loyalty to come back for Larry’s  daughter’s car 3 years later.  

That lack of friction creates a meaningful experience that sticks.  

° ° °

Nothing about the web design charisma needs to change.  

It’s merely that ‘compliant’ Alt Text costs the business it’s desired outcome.  And rejects what the consumer needs. 
It’s merely that ‘compliant’ Alt Text costs the business it’s desired outcome.  And rejects what the consumer needs.

Creatives are masterful with image curation and creation, now it’s easy to apply into Alt  Text that doesn’t miss the point.  

→ Here is an extension about Neuroaccessibility to update an inclusion mindset with  what we can neurodigital design. 

Photo by Siddhesh Mangela on Unsplash