Turning images into words: how to write better alt text

Wednesday 20 March 2024, 20:45 UTC, Stage 1

We all know that we must write alt text for images, but are we doing it well? Learn five ways to truly craft and nurture alt text that boosts accessibility and inclusion.

When it comes to creating accessible content, including alt text on image and video content is mandatory to ensure your visual content is available to people not viewing it. While every good content practitioner knows that we must provide it, the internet is still littered with examples of poorly written alt text that offers an insult to accessibility.

Writing good alt text is one of those underrated content design skills. It takes thought and attention. It can be tricky to test if you’ve done it effectively. It can also bring into question the design of pages that have received sign-off (because it’s only when you write the alt text you properly question the true purpose of the images and video). In this short talk you’ll take away a renewed approach to the way you do alt text. You’ll learn 5 diverse ways to improve how you describe images and videos – such as: what to include and what to leave out, what to do about mark-up, easy ways to test and smart yet human use of AI.

Session takeaway

Five ways to write alt text to be proud of

Meet your session facilitator

Emma Horrel (UK)
User Experience Manager, University of Edinburgh

Emma is the UX Manager at the University of Edinburgh (UK). She heads up a small team of content and UX staff to train, coach and empower the University’s distributed content publishing community in content design best practice.

Emma is obsessed with finding new ways to improve content design at the University, from the bottom-up, on a webpage-by-webpage level to the top-down, influencing development and procurement of systems.

Based in the IT Department, Emma’s passionate about viewing systems as services, and to this end, driving staff-and-student centred iteration of technical University systems, in particular the University virtual learning environment and the central content management system.

Languages spoken: English

A global problem they’d love to solve: The climate crisis

Something they can’t be without: Books