Making Images Accessible to the Blind

The following is a guest post from Disability.gov.

Making Images Accessible to the Blind

By Guest Blogger Mel Finefrock, Editor and Freelance Writer

When it comes to photodocumentation via social media, many unknowingly describe their photos by accompanying them with little anecdotes like “Grandma and me at her 80th birthday celebration.” These sorts of descriptions add meaning to photos for all who view them, but perhaps especially for people who are blind.

When it comes to mainstream Web design though, people often overlook labeling or describing their graphics, leaving individuals who are blind at a loss for understanding the significance of them. My hope in writing this article is to encourage the use of image description and demystify the process of implementing it.

Alternative Text

There are two ways to approach describing your graphics, the first of which being alternative text, better known as alt text. What is alt text? Although it’s originally intended to serve as a placeholder for graphics in the event that a visitor to your website cannot download them, the neat thing about alt text is that screenreading software, such as JAWS (Freedom Scientific), Window-Eyes (GW Micro), NVDA (NV Access) and VoiceOver (Apple), pick up on these labels and give people who are blind feedback as to the nature of the image. As such, alt text is a great way to implement image descriptions and make your website more accessible to screenreader users.

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