We all love sharing details about our latest activities, from the excursion you took on holiday, the fantastic new outfit you bought or just your beloved pet pulling the cutest face ever. Sometimes the quickest and best way to share your feelings with others is through pictures, after all, a picture is worth a thousand words, right?
Well, not always, for those of us who navigate the world without sight, it can be incredibly frustrating to feel like you’re not getting to share in the experience when everyone else is reacting to that funny picture in a WhatsApp thread, or that graphic in the presentation that shows amazing growth across the last quarter. While images can sometimes be the fastest way to get your message across, some of us need a little bit more detail.
Why Alt Text Matters
Alt text, or alternative text, is a way of providing more useful information about your images by including a brief description of the content for people using assistive software like screen readers. The text is hidden within the image, not like a caption, so everything appears the same as before, but now it can be understood by a broader audience.
What Makes Good Alt Text?
You don’t need to write an essay describing every person, object or action in the picture. In fact, too much description can be just as bad as no description at all.
Descriptions are best kept concise and focusing on the main points of interest. The gender, race, hair colour of an individual, what they are doing, are they smiling, laughing or crying, or the general impression in an image with multiple people.
Instead of listing every person and object, highlight the key elements:
- What’s happening?
- Who’s involved (generally)?
- What’s the mood or action?
Example:
Say you’re posting a picture of your sports team winning a trophy, you don’t need to name and describe everyone in the line-up, their kit, poses, and the trophy, it would take forever to get through all of the information.
Instead, try “The football team in their orange kit, all smiling and holding the trophy in the air”.
A couple of lines is as detailed as you need to get, but it can make the world of difference in helping make your point more accessible and easier to understand.
We want to use this image at the end of an article, the alt text description could say something like:
**Alt text: A photograph of blog writer Lee, a white man with brown hair, a beard and a moustache, smiling towards the camera.**
Anyone reading the article with a screen reader will now be able to tell what’s in the image, rather than just hearing a generic note that there is an image included. If the image helps complement the text in the article, then it’s now easier to understand for any screen reader users, and they feel more included in the information you’re sharing with everyone else.
Beyond Screen Readers: Descriptions for Partial Sight
Not everyone with sight loss uses a screen reader. They are used by those of us with very little or no vision, but sight loss is a spectrum so not everybody will use the same software. Many people may be able to see part of the image, or tell if it’s a picture of a person, a pet or a plant without getting all of the detail. For this reason, there is another way you can make images accessible.
Add Image Descriptions
Adding an image description to the body of your social media post, presentation or article can help people with partial sight. By adding the same descriptive text at the end of the post as you would put in the Alt text box, someone who doesn’t use a screen reader can enjoy the image as well.
Going back to the image of our sports celebration, you would just add a section at the end of the post saying something like, ‘The image shows the football team in their orange kit, all smiling and holding the trophy in the air’. Now, what might just have looked like a big orange blob makes a lot more sense for anyone with less sight.
Two Simple Ways to Improve Accessibility
Both methods are simple ways to greatly improve the accessibility of your content. Alt text can be vital for screen reader users, and adding an image description can benefit a wide range of people.
Final Thought
Next time you post a picture, consider accessibility. A few extra words can make your content more inclusive and meaningful for everyone.
If you would like further assistance in making your content more inclusive or if you would like a website review, please contact us at info@evenbreak.com. The Evenbreak Team will be happy to help.
