Images missing a description
What happens when a product photo has no description, why Shopify stores are full of them, and how to fix it in the admin.
What a shopper experiences
Someone using a screen reader hears a description of each image instead of seeing it. When an image has no description, the screen reader has nothing to say. A product photo becomes silence. A photo being used as a button becomes a dead end — they know something is there, but not what it does. Images that are purely decorative are meant to be marked as decorative, which is a different thing from having no description, and we do not flag those.
Why it shows up on Shopify stores
Product photos are the usual source. The description field in Shopify admin is optional and easy to skip when you are uploading forty images at once. Theme sections and installed apps add more. This is the most common problem we find, and also the one most within your control.
How to fix it
In Shopify admin, open a product, click an image, and fill in the alt text field. Describe what the image shows in a few words, the way you would to someone on the phone: "navy wool scarf, folded" rather than "IMG_4471" or "scarf product photo". If the same image appears in your theme rather than your catalogue, your theme editor has the same field.
What we record
We note the page and the date we first saw it. When you add the descriptions and we check again, it is marked fixed with that date. Your record then shows not just that the problem existed, but how quickly you dealt with it — which is the part that matters if anyone ever asks.