How to fix object alt on BigCommerce

Steps for BigCommerce

1. In your BigCommerce admin, go to Storefront → My Themes → click 'Advanced' → 'Edit Theme Files' on your active theme.
2. Locate the relevant Handlebars template (e.g. `templates/pages/product.html` or a partial in `templates/components/`).
3. Find the `<object>` tag and add `aria-label="Descriptive text here"` to it, and/or add descriptive fallback content between the tags.
4. If the object is placed via a content page (Web Pages → Edit), click the HTML source button (`<>`) in the rich text editor and edit the tag directly.
5. Save the file and preview the page; verify with the axe DevTools browser extension.

<object data="product-spec.pdf" type="application/pdf" aria-label="Product specification sheet for Model X (PDF)">
  <a href="product-spec.pdf">Download the Product Specification Sheet for Model X (PDF)</a>
</object>

What is object alt?

The HTML `<object>` tag is used to embed content like PDFs, Flash files, SVGs, or other media directly in a web page. WCAG Success Criterion 1.1.1 ("Non-text Content") requires that every non-text element — including `<object>` embeds — has a meaningful text alternative that describes what it is or what it does. This alternative can be provided via an `aria-label` attribute, an `aria-labelledby` attribute pointing to visible text, or fallback text placed inside the `<object>` tag itself. Without one, the element is invisible to assistive technology.

Screen readers used by blind and low-vision shoppers will skip over or announce an `<object>` element as meaningless — saying something like "unlabelled graphic" or nothing at all — if it has no text alternative. This creates a broken experience for those customers: they may miss a product demo, an embedded PDF data sheet, or a promotional graphic, which can directly cost you sales. Legally, failing WCAG 1.1.1 exposes your store to accessibility complaints and lawsuits under the ADA (US), EAA (EU), AODA (Canada), and equivalent laws in many other countries. Search engines also use text alternatives as indexable content signals, so labelling embedded objects can marginally help SEO for the content they contain.

See the complete Object alt guide for every platform and the full background.