"ADA Compliance" is a USA law that requires, among other things, that commercial and government web-sites be accessible (use-able) to those with eyesight disabilities. Often the visually impaired use special software that reads the web-page content back to them, describing hyperlink and form options if encountered. Certain HTML coding practices can make using such readers impractical for a given page, resulting in lawsuits.
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Miscellaneous Questions

* Do icons need an ALT attribute if they are not necessary information? For example, if you have a hyper-link to a FAQ page, and the icon is a picture of a question mark, does one need code such as "<img src='faq_icon.jpg' alt='question mark'>". If the "A" tag already labels the hyperlink as "Frequently Asked Questions", then the icon doesn't add much additional information. The hyperlink is sufficiently labelled without a description or knowledge of the icon. AsciiArt illustration:

         [?] Frequently Asked Questions