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Thread: Question About Alternative Text
Number of posts in this thread: 9 (In chronological order)
From: Drip Jutsu
Date: Tue, Aug 04 2020 8:35PM
Subject: Question About Alternative Text
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Hi All,
I have been an accessibility specialist for some time now, but there are moments in which I feel lost in how to address certain things. I understand the guidelines, but there are always cases in which I believe it comes down to the designers and developers.
One question that I have always had is, are we supposed to provide alt text for images that are not necessarily decorative, that is, they are not only existent for visual design reasons, but are not necessarily informative and do not convey information important for the website user. An example I have is, let's say there is an article that discusses the importance of classroom rules, and in the article, there is a picture of students in a classroom. The image of students in a classroom is not important for understanding the article as a whole or any context within the article. One could argue that the image is important for the visual user to empathize with a classroom setting, but I am not sure where to stand on this topic. I typically add alternative text to all images unless it is very clearly decorative.
Best,
An Accessibility Specialist
From: David Engebretson Jr.
Date: Tue, Aug 04 2020 10:25PM
Subject: Re: Question About Alternative Text
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Good question! I often try to emphasize that the description of the
classroom, the students, and whatever might be happening in the graphic is
most important while creating alt text.
So, to me, " students in a classroom" Is better than"
1. "Photo of students in a classroom" Or
2. "Image of students in a classroom"
But it's not too hard for designers and developers to get creative with alt
text. It just takes a different part of the brain to get creatively
descriptive.
For example, I might suggest the specific classroom and the specific class
the students are taking be a part of the alt text:
"15 students in a classroom in Red Square with the professor pointing
emphatically at a model of a molecule"
To me, as a blind person, this paints a bigger picture.
Personally I think that creative alt text is an art form in itself. I have
found that when people understand that it is an art form, even the more
technically oriented developers will put more effort into alt text.
Best,
David
From: glen walker
Date: Wed, Aug 05 2020 8:51AM
Subject: Re: Question About Alternative Text
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If I were auditing that site, if the classroom pic had an empty alt text, I
would be fine with it. If it had a descriptive alt text, I would be fine
with it, but I agree with David that alt text can be a creative art form.
It's kind of a "can't lose" situation in your scenario. I don't often ping
decorative images with alt text unless it's something like a horizontal
line divider and the alt text is "horizontal line divider". That really
should be hidden. But pictures that don't add meaning, while I prefer them
to be hidden, if they have a decent alt text and don't distract from what's
going on, I usually leave alone. I might make a note that the alt text
isn't needed but there's no reason to pull it out. I note it for the
client's future reference.
If I were implementing that site, I would have an empty alt text. It's
decorative to me.
From: Mallory
Date: Thu, Aug 06 2020 5:55AM
Subject: Re: Question About Alternative Text
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Many users say they like good alt text, but when the site I'm auditing is using stock images simply to break up blocks of text, I feel it's decorative as well.
But I may mention it to the client anyway. I'm a terse/to the point person who would grimace at even a decent description of "white woman smiling at a salad" type photos, but I am not the user, and the client may be aware of whether they have a user segment that reacts to those kinds of photos.
For example, if this is a "white women lose weight and find their spirit animals through smoothies and yoga" blog site, it may be a better recommendation that the site authors *don't* treat those as decorative images. Even when they're clearly stock photos bought randomly from a stock package. If they're adding a mood, or encouraging a purchase, they really might fall under content.
For a recent bank audit where for little article blurbs they had stock photos of things like piles of paper bills, stock-price graphs with no names (just a generic STONKS graphic), oxfords-not-brogues businessman shoes, etc. I was happy to let them use alt="". I can't imagine what kind of alt text they could add that wouldn't be awful.
But wouldn't mind hearing more about what the end-users prefer.
cheers,
_mallory
On Wed, Aug 5, 2020, at 4:51 PM, glen walker wrote:
> If I were auditing that site, if the classroom pic had an empty alt text, I
> would be fine with it. If it had a descriptive alt text, I would be fine
> with it, but I agree with David that alt text can be a creative art form.
> It's kind of a "can't lose" situation in your scenario. I don't often ping
> decorative images with alt text unless it's something like a horizontal
> line divider and the alt text is "horizontal line divider". That really
> should be hidden. But pictures that don't add meaning, while I prefer them
> to be hidden, if they have a decent alt text and don't distract from what's
> going on, I usually leave alone. I might make a note that the alt text
> isn't needed but there's no reason to pull it out. I note it for the
> client's future reference.
>
> If I were implementing that site, I would have an empty alt text. It's
> decorative to me.
> > > > >
From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Thu, Aug 06 2020 6:30AM
Subject: Re: Question About Alternative Text
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I think one of the things that is problematic about testing alt text is that
testers typically had no involvement in or information about the design
process for a user interface. We are frequently just guessing. That is why
I think it makes sense to take a light touch to testing the alt text. If
the alt text is not obviously problematic, then it passes.
If I had involvement in the design or access to the information, I might be
more strict on what passes because I can specifically ask the designer what
their intent was.
The appropriateness of alt text is probably something that ought to be
tested in design. Then when you get to testing the application, you just
make sure the alt text or null alt text is present.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim Harshbarger
Senior Accessibility Consultant
Deque Systems
From: Steve Green
Date: Thu, Aug 06 2020 8:13AM
Subject: Re: Question About Alternative Text
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Some years ago we were testing a construction industry website in which all the decorative images had literal "alt" attributes such as "two men with hats" and " two men, one has a hat". During the user testing, screen reader users howled with laughter. You might think that's bad, but it brought a bit of fun to what was otherwise an extraordinarily boring website.
Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd
From:
Subject: Re: Question About Alternative Text
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Hi,
if you provide alternative text, you can leave it up to the user what do with it (the image/its alternative text). I tend to think for example of a user with some kind of low vision - she might be seeing that there is a picture but may have difficulty figuring out what it is about. Based on your example a text like 'students in a classroom' could convey that the picture might not be that critical for understanding the text but still provides equivalent context as a normal sighted user might get. And a low vision user can then decide whether to zoom in or whatever to get hold of more aspects of the image, or to leave it alone as it probably is not that essential.
Just my 2 cents...
Olaf
> On 5. Aug 2020, at 04:35, Drip Jutsu < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
>
>
> I have been an accessibility specialist for some time now, but there are moments in which I feel lost in how to address certain things. I understand the guidelines, but there are always cases in which I believe it comes down to the designers and developers.
>
>
>
> One question that I have always had is, are we supposed to provide alt text for images that are not necessarily decorative, that is, they are not only existent for visual design reasons, but are not necessarily informative and do not convey information important for the website user. An example I have is, let's say there is an article that discusses the importance of classroom rules, and in the article, there is a picture of students in a classroom. The image of students in a classroom is not important for understanding the article as a whole or any context within the article. One could argue that the image is important for the visual user to empathize with a classroom setting, but I am not sure where to stand on this topic. I typically add alternative text to all images unless it is very clearly decorative.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> An Accessibility Specialist
>
> > > >
From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Mon, Aug 10 2020 10:46AM
Subject: Re: Question About Alternative Text
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I saw a site where the image of the product (a smoothie) communicated information about the ingredients that were not in the name of the product on the same page. While the user could have drilled down into subsequent pages to find this information alt text would be really invaluable in this situation as a sighted person is instantly cued into the smoothie by the ingredients and not just the name.
I also find sites that intentionally communicate diversity in images to encourage a wide group of people to do something such as get a vaccine or images that communicate a healthcare professional to lend credibility to an article -- these images were chosen on purpose to communicate something and thus it can be important to provide alt text.
Jonathan
From: Mallory
Date: Tue, Aug 11 2020 6:59AM
Subject: Re: Question About Alternative Text
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Those are both good examples of the images being more "content". In Dutch it's called part of the "sfeer" (as in "atmosphere" but I'm not sure the right word in English. The feel?).
cheers,
_mallory
On Mon, Aug 10, 2020, at 6:46 PM, Jonathan Avila wrote:
> I saw a site where the image of the product (a smoothie) communicated
> information about the ingredients that were not in the name of the
> product on the same page. While the user could have drilled down into
> subsequent pages to find this information alt text would be really
> invaluable in this situation as a sighted person is instantly cued into
> the smoothie by the ingredients and not just the name.
>
> I also find sites that intentionally communicate diversity in images to
> encourage a wide group of people to do something such as get a vaccine
> or images that communicate a healthcare professional to lend
> credibility to an article -- these images were chosen on purpose to
> communicate something and thus it can be important to provide alt text.
>
> Jonathan