Creating Accessible Images
Images Introduction

Something to Think About...

Most people know that you need to provide alternative text for images. This is probably the most talked-about aspect of web accessibility. It is one of the easiest elements of a web page to check for (e.g. does the image have alt text or not?), and it is one of the easiest accessibility techniques to understand (if the image has no alt text, a blind person can't access it). The emphasis that has been placed on alt text is well-deserved, and has served to solidify the concept of accessibility in the minds of many developers.

What many people do not know, though, is there is much more to the accessibility of an image than just its alt text. Some people wrongly assume that images are bad for accessibility, since alt text essentially replaces the image with a text-only version of that image. The logical extension of that thought is that text-only sites are ideal for accessibility. The problem with this logic, though, is that it is based upon the needs of people with only one type of disability: blindness. What about people with low vision, or color-blindness, or deafness, or motor disabilities, or cognitive disabilities?

That is why this section on graphics does not start with the concept of alternative text. It starts with a discussion about how to use graphics effectively to increase accessibility. After this discussion, we will consider methods for creating effective alt text.