WiscWeb - WordPress UW Theme - Using Alternative (Alt) Text

Alternative (Alt) Text is added to images to increase accessibility of your site. Alternative text provides meaning and description to images read by screen readers.

Requirements

From the World Wide Web Consortium (https://www.w3.org/ ), "Accessibility is essential for developers and organizations that want to create high quality websites and web tools, and not exclude people from using their products and services." Alternative text for images is a necessary element of designing a website to create accessible content for your audiences.
  1. When uploading Media, there are two fields that should users should populate immediately.
    • The Title field provides an ability to search for the media based on name of the media item.
    • The Alt Text field, which will make this image accessible for visitors to your site.

      Media Library options for alternative text

Best Practice

  • Be accurate about what the content of the image is. 
  • Alt text should be no more than a few words to present to correct content
  • Do not repeat content that already exists on page or in a post.
  • You do not need to use "image of..." or "photo of..."
  • More information regarding the use of alternative text can be found at WebAIM (https://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/)