All About Alt Text

What do you see when you are browsing through your Facebook feed? How Many posts can you count that don't include some form of photo or video? Would it surprise you to know that photo recognition is good enough that some features of photos are recognized by screen readers? Technology is far from adequate, though, especially when it comes to a platform that is 99% photo or video posts.

AI is also not able to recognize context of photos. If you are sitting on the couch with your dog Max and his new toy, AI will probably say something like a person and dog sitting on a couch, and it may recognize the toy as well...but won't really mean anything for the visually impaired user trying to see their friend's photo. For this reason, user submitted alt text is preferable to auto generated alt text, and it is easier to add than you might think.

On Facebook, when you are uploading a photo, there is a more menu next to the photo after you have added it to your post but before you click the post button. In this menu, you will see options for editing your photo, an add caption option, and an add alt text option. If you click this alt text option, it may ask you if you want to override generated alt text, click override, and add your own.

If you have already clicked post, don't worry, simply go to your post, click edit post, click on the photo you want to add alt text to, and the more menu on that screen beside your photo will have the alt text option in it.

Not sure what to say in your alt text? Think of what you might say to a visually impaired person sitting next to you asking about the photo. What people/animals/objects are in the photo? How are they interacting with each other? What emotions are you seeing from them, facial expressions? Good alt text is between 100 and 200 characters, between one and two lines of text and is detailed but concise.

There are some things in a photo that are irrelevant, for example if there is a lamp in the background, you probably don't have to mention it, unless of course it is the focus of your photo: Max sitting beside Jena on the couch growling at the lamp beside him, Jena covering her mouth with laughter.

In a social media world with hundreds of thousands of visual posts, educating users on how to be accessible is key. If users don't know what tools are available to them, how are they supposed to use them? And if one person can take something away from this post, share it with a few friends, and have each of them learn something, that is how word spreads fast. If even one person reads this post and shares it, and tries to implement alt text themself, I consider that progress!