Images often contain critical information – if you don’t have alt-text, you are essentially hiding that information from part of your audience. Alt-text is crucial for people with vision-related disabilities and it can be beneficial if people are trying to access your content with a poor-internet connection that prevents images from loading.

• Keep it short!
• Describe both the image/graphic itself and its purpose – why is it there?
• If the image as text, you need to represent all the text included in the image.
• If things like layout are critical for meaning, you will need to convey that as well.
• Don’t use “image of” or “picture of” in your alt-text; a screen reader will automatically announce that it’s an image, so you don’t want to be redundant. 
• Even decorative images need alt-text because you need to indicate to a screen reader that they are decorative.
  • If an image is decorative, write “decorative” in the alt-text field.
  • Do not check the box that says “mark as decorative." While the intent of this box is to let a screen reader skip over it, this doesn’t actually work with all screen readers. NVDA and JAWS will announce that there is a graphic present, but nothing else, so a user won’t know if an image is decorative or if the author just forgot to add alt-text.

Option 1: Students on campus.

• This isn't the best option because it isn't giving a clear description
  of the full image and text.

Option 2: Two female students walking across the quad in conversation on a fall day, surrounded by red and yellow trees. The title underneath the students reads "Academic Resources." Under the title, a paragraph reads "Academic resources on campus are among the finest in the world. The University Library is one of the largest public university collections in the world with 14 million volumes in its 20+ unit libraries. Annually, 53,000,000 people visit its online catalog. Students have access to thousands of computer terminals in classrooms, residence halls, and campus libraries for use in classroom instruction, study, and research."

• This is a good option -- this alt-text includes the social identities of the students, descriptive details about color and weather, and includes all the text appearing with the image.

Option 3: Two female students walking across the quad in conversation on a fall day, surrounded by red and yellow trees. Text below the image discusses academic resources on campus.

• This option does include a clearer description of the image but it does not include any of the text that is needed to gain a full understanding of what this image is meant to convey.

Option 1: Funk (ACES) Library in the fall, surrounded by red, orange, and yellow trees. Layered on top of the image, text describes why the library was built.

• This provides a clear description of the library with details about color, but summarizes the text instead of including it.

Option 2: Image of Funk (ACES) Library.

• Not a good option; it isn't descriptive, doesn't  include any indication of the text, and it starts with "image of." We can do better!

Option 3: Funk (ACES) Library in the fall, surrounded by red, orange, and yellow trees. On top of the image, text reads "One of the best places to study on the South Quad, the Funk (ACES) Library was built to integrate traditional information sources with new learning and information technologies."

• This is the best option; it provides a clear and detailed description of the library and includes all of the text associated.