To improve accessibility of your digital content alternative (alt) text should be added to graphical components such as photographs, illustrations, graphs, charts etc. Alt text is a short description that can be read aloud by screen-readers, allowing people with visual impairments to understand the content of images.
Tips for adding alternative text
- Add concise descriptions – alt text should be short and descriptive. For more complex images (e.g. a diagram) the alt text can refer to a longer figure description.
- Consider your audience – keep your audience and the context of the surrounding text in mind when writing your descriptions.
- Mark elements as decorative – images that do not add any information or context and are purely decorative can be marked as such. Do not leave alt text empty.
Resources
- POET training tool – a brilliant resource to help you write image descriptions
- Add alternative text to a shape, picture, chart, SmartArt graphic, or other object – add alt text to Microsoft office documents