How-Tos and Demos
Accessible Graphics
Example: alt Text for a Logo
This example shows the official wordmark of The University of Texas at Austin. This is one of the images available for use on the University's departmental and administrative Web sites. The image includes a stylized representation of the University Tower and the words "The University of Texas at Austin" in an elegant, all-caps font. The alt text for this logo reads, "The University of Texas at Austin.
How to do it
Code example for logo with alt text 
Rationale
The first thing to note about the image in this example is that it is a wordmark: it includes distinctive graphical text as an essential part of its meaning. Sighted people will read the words quite easily, but screen readers will treat them as unintelligible graphical bits and ignore them. Therefore, when graphical text appears on a Web page, the alt text should include identical text to the graphical text on the screen.
Alt text should provide an "equivalent alternative" to the image with which it is associated. That is, the alt text should serve the same purpose as the image. In this example, the purpose of the image is to "brand" the Web page as part of the University of Texas at Austin's Web presence. Thus the alt text should do the same thing.
It is unnecessary to describe the image or to identify it as a logo.
How it sounds with the JAWS screen reader
Listen to JAWS reading this graphic
JAWS transcript
[graphic The University of Texas at Austin]