As much as I’m sure anyone familiar with web accessibility doesn’t need yet another example of why alt text matters, as a consumer of web content I certainly am impacted when it is missing.
For anyone exploring cutting the cord, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a handy resource to show you what digital television stations you can receive in your area with an antenna. Navigate to https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/dtvmaps and enter an address, city and state or zip code to get this information. Results are in a table that has headers and such. This is good.
Unfortunately, one of the key pieces of information, the signal strength from these results is a graphic. As you can expect from the title of this post, there is no alt text on these graphics.
Section 508 has been around for quite some time as have the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Proper alt text, again as I’m sure pretty much anyone working in the web environment knows, is a requirement. One can only wonder why something this basic was missed.
You should request dispute resolution from the disability rights Office. http://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov