What is Alt Text?
- When you include an image in a document or a website, it is important to provide a written description of the image. This description is called alternative text or alt text for short.
- For those with limited or no sight, they will not be able to understand or make use of the image's qualities, and adding alt text provides this information to them.
- For example, if you want to use an image of a lake and don’t provide alt text, a non-sighted user will hear “IMG” as a description or possibly nothing.
- Here are some examples of alt text for this image
- Good (Bad) Alt Text: A lake
- Better Alt Text: Water-filled pit on a sunny day
- Best Alt Text: Redhead Mine Lake, an abandoned water filled mine.
Tips for writing great alt text
- Make it short, succinct, but descriptive
- Context matters. Alt text for the same image could be written in different ways, depending on what is in the accompanying text.
- If the image contains text, include all the text in the image.
- You don’t need to say “Image of” or “Picture of” - a Screen Reader will do that work for you.
What if I can’t use alt text?
- Some programs, such as our email suite GMail, do not allow for alt text. As the next best alternative, we suggest either:
- Not including the image in your email
- Linking to a source document that contains an alt tag
- Writing a short, pithy description below the image
- Abstract images (flourishes, dots, decorations) are hard to describe with Alt text. As an alternative experts recommend either:
- Deleting the image as it is extraneous
- Mark the item as “decorative”
Where can I learn more about Alternative Text and digital accessibility?
- Check out the Accessible U website for more information on digital accessibility
- Enroll in the Digital Accessibility Badging Program