Making Your Content Accessible - Alt Tags, Captions, and Transcripts

Now you know why you need to make your content accessible (remember, making content accessible helps many people who do not have what might normally be considered a disability) and what types of digital media there are, so let's take a look at some ways to actually do it.

Alt Tags

Alternate tags, or "alt tags", are alternative text that contains a description of an image. The purpose of using alt tags is to inform the user that an image is being "read". They are also used to enable "text reader" software to identify an image. Text or document reader software is used by persons with disabilities and those who may have other learning challenges.  As the document reader software comes to an image, the reader will identify that an image is at that point in a document and the alternative text of that image will be read.  You need to add alt tags to all images contained in any document, presentation, spreadsheet, .pdf file, literally anything, that is made available on the web.

Just what should be included in an alt tag?  How much is too much?  The WebAIM site has an article called "Alternative Text" Links to an external site..  It stresses that alternative text should be simple. If an image is without meaning, it still must be tagged. In such cases, simply indicating alt="" with nothing between the quotation marks (where the alternative text would be placed in HTML) is sufficient. 

Another article from WebAIM, "Accessibility Gone Wild" Links to an external site. stresses simplicity when creating alternative text tags. 

We continue to see images described in alternative text. Any time alternative text contains a description of an image, the alternative text is likely not optimal and is often just plain bad. Alternative text must convey the content and functionality of an image and should rarely be a description of the image. Rather than providing what the image looks like, alt text should convey what the content of the image is and what it does. 

Note that some versions of commonly used programs do not have the ability to add alt tags. If you are using those versions, you will need to access a version that allows you to create alt tags in order to make your materials accessible.  This document can be accessed by clicking on this link for Adding Alternative Text Tags to Images in Word/PowerPoint/Excel Links to an external site.. 

Captions and Transcripts

Adding captions to video and a transcript to audio is mandatory under Federal (and state) law.  I was recently honored to be a co-presenter with Dr. Lucinda Aborn the dean of our Disabled Student Programs & Services (DSPS) department at the Online Teaching Conference.  Our presentation was recorded and is available on 3C Media Solutions web site.  Dr. Aborn's portion of the presentation was on the importance of captioning.  View this workshop at:  http://www.3cmediasolutions.org/node/2298 Links to an external site..

Again, what's the difference between subtitles and captions?  Essentially, subtitles contain only spoken words or narration.  Captions include all sounds in an audio file.  For instance, if a dog barks in the background while you are narrating your PowerPoint, if you only include what you have said, then you have subtitles.  However, if you also indicate that your dog is barking by including this in brackets [dog barking], then you have captions.