A guide to writing alt text and accessible image captions

Making your online content and social media profiles accessible to the majority of people stumbling across your posts is an intentional practice. From Instagram and Twitter photo descriptions to captioning audio on your TikTok videos, users should be aware of these accessibility considerations. And it’s an important way to make sure your accounts are navigable by people with various disabilities. Don’t fret: You already have most of the tools at your disposal. SEE ALSO: The biggest assistive technology and accessibility triumphs of 2023 (so far) One of the easiest ways to make your profiles more accessible is to add alternative text (alt text) image descriptions to your posts. This simple practice has the potential to help the millions of Americans who use assistive technology to access the internet, from people who are blind or have low vision to many others who use screen-reading devices. Once written, the descriptions are added to a website’s HTML, making images easier to translate to screen readers, voice controls, or even directly to Braille. For the most part, alt text is a responsibility of the website designer and is implemented in the coding process, but on profiles where you frequently add images or decorative elements, it’s also something to consider doing yourself. While making these additions won’t take up much of your time, there is an art to ensuring that your alt-text image descriptions are easily read by others’ tech. When getting ready to add your own alt text for images, there are three main…A guide to writing alt text and accessible image captions