Alt text and Image Description

There are about fifteen bazillion guides on accessibility of images and all the different things and purposes and guidelines about the topic. I wish to throw my hat into the ring because, well, I think it might be helpful to someone.

My personal love language is fixating on things, collecting them, and displaying them in exciting or helpful ways. I think it’s a neurodivergent thing. Let’s say, for example, I’m making a webpage about a new exciting topic. Here’s what I can consider.

ALT TEXT

As I imagine and design how my webpage will look like, I can think about putting in a picture or two. I can also jot down the basics of what picture I want and where, making myself a script of the page with text only. This basic image description is my alt text.

Alt text is the simplest and most relevant description of a unit of image. Alt text is telling what you’re showing, it is the basic script of your message all written down contextually.

When I’m done with my script, I can start gathering and placing pictures. ImageOne, for example, is “Kiki and bouba” and ImageTwo is “Multiple wugs”. This is a very simple description - I should be describing what kikis and boubas and wugs look like in my text, so I don’t need to write it again. If I’m writing this for a social media post, I’ll have a character limit for alt text too, so it’s important to stick to the point.

Alt text is hidden in my code for my webpage, so folks who can see the image don’t need to read it and folks who can’t see and use a screenreader will access the alt text automatically. Also, whatever happens to my page, from people’s slow connection to errors on my side, something will always be there to tell what I wanted to show.

Speaking of errors, if I ever, for example, change the names of all of my images in a fit of rage and therefore break the pathway to my image display, I will be able to go back to my original code and see the basics of the image that I want to be displayed and fix the problem.

While I design my webpage, I can put some dividers and placeholders for decorations. As long as I write my code to do the job of dividing and place holding, I don’t need to describe what these things look like - the job will be done anyway. At this point, my primary worry is my webpage working at all and troubleshooting different ways of how it can work and can be fixed if something goes out of whack.

CAPTION

As I gather things to display on my webpage, my academia-riddled brain will want to leave some digital footprints. This is when I can write a caption underneath or next to an image.

Captions give context to an image, where it came from, and who made it.

I can think of it as a citation. Even if I mention all the separate points about this picture somewhere in my text, I should leave the full identifying information on the origins of this picture next to it. This will make people’s lives easier - people can find more pictures by this author if they want to and so can I. This will also help the people who draw or paint or photograph wugs be more appreciated and be credited for their work.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION

Now, this is a weird one. I don’t exactly know where image descriptions came from and my research is not very helpful. Most of my understanding of these comes from social media where alt text on images is either not implemented or limited; in some cases, alt text is available but the original poster doesn’t provide alt text themselves and a person adds an image description to their reblog.

Image description is an addition to the basics, it is visible to everyone and picked up by screenreaders too. Some people say that if alt text to an image is available, image description is not needed. Others say that having both alt text and image descriptions is good, so everyone can access the description no matter what tech they are using. There are points to consider in both cases and more.

While alt text is a part of the very basics of my webpage and is included in my designing and planning, I might still add an image description. Since it’s a block of text that often has no limits on words or characters, I can be more descriptive and elaborate in my description.

Personally, I find image description helpful when describing my own abstract visual art. I can make sure to include the basics of my piece in alt text and caption, I can also add a different way of experiencing this art. It reminds me of the time I was an artist in a collaborative exhibition: I was invited to chat with guests about my art and people almost always asked: “What is this?” I could provide the short run down (similar to alt text) or some technical details (similar to captions), but I know that people were asking something bigger than that, something about my vision, my intentions, my message with this art. People were asking me for an artist statement combined with my subjective view of the piece and some interesting details that I know about.

With that in mind, I can add an image description for the kiki and bouba picture to emphasize the style of the image or something that particularly stands out to me. Art often prompts people to have a longer description of it, even if most people can see the same image.

To summarize:

Alt text is the basics of every contextually significant visual media, made with designer and coder brain;

Caption is contextual information plus credits for the visual media, made with academic and archivist brain;

Image description is an additional expanded description for the visual media, made with artist and educator brain.

All these things can coexist and play nice with each other on a webpage or in a post, as all of them add a level of context that doesn’t need to be repetitive or overwhelming. Adding these things makes your things more accessible to wider range of people.

To read more about alt text and image descriptions, please check out these resources:

Last edited: 13/09/23