social Media & IMAGE dESCRIPTIONS
What are image descriptions?
Image descriptions help blind and visually impaired people access visual content. When you write out an image description, you should include any relevant visual information conveyed through a picture. Image descriptions can include:
People
Text
Illustrations
Objects
When should I use image descriptions?
Whenever possible. Even for infographics and text-based images.
Where do image descriptions go?
Great question! If you're posting a picture on social media, you should write your image descriptions in two spaces:
Within the alt-text of your post
Within the caption of your post
Example
[image description: Photo of a small brown dog wearing glasses behind a laptop on a table]
Alt-text
If you only navigate through content in a visual manner, there's a chance you'll never notice whether or not pictures you interact with online have alt-text.
So why add alt-text?
Blind and visually impaired people who use screen readers or braille displays will be able to hear or feel alt-text if it's present.
Are there character limits for alt-text?
Unfortunately, yes. Sometimes, this can be a slight challenge for your description endeavors.
If your description is longer than the alt-text character limit, you can expand upon it within the caption of your post. And to clarify, in this instance "caption" refers to the text associated with the post, not the written descriptions of auditory content.
So why write descriptions in both the alt-text and the captions?
Aside from the previously mentioned character limits, including descriptions in the text/captions of posts makes those descriptions more inclusive to a wider array of people. Not all visually impaired people use screen readers. People who might not be able to clearly see a post might be able to read the description below the picture.
The image descriptions that you include within the alt-text of your posts will likely be shorter than the image descriptions you include in your captions.
