Alt Text Guide

With the literal blitz of information coming out thanks to the Executive Orders of the current US President, it’s easy to get lost in all of it. It’s especially easy to get lost if you have any sort of vision loss, or use a screen reader while using a computer.

Screen readers are nifty, because they literally read out loud to you what is on your screen, so if you’re blind or have any sort of vision loss, you can still get the same information and entertainment from the internet as everyone else. However, when it comes to pictures, the only way for screen readers to be able to explain what is in it is if the picture has alt text.

There are so many pictures across various cites on the internet that have lots of pictures but no alt text, which means if important information is in the picture and not the text, then folks who use screen readers aren’t getting that information. In order to make sure that everyone can get this information it’s important that those of us who can add alt text to these pictures.

If you don’t know how, or are unsure exactly what information you should put into alt text (or even if you think you know, you still might get good information out of this) check out this How to Write Alt Text and Image Descriptions guide by Veronica Lewis. It gives information about what should be posted in the alt text, the character limits for alt text across various cites, and gives information about what a screen reader is and how it’s used.

And if you see an image on socials that doesn’t have alt text, add it. This helps make sure that the information gets to everyone, not just the folks who don’t need that kind of assistance.