Penning Alt-Text Made Me a Better Writer

Alt-Text is important for accessibility — and it can also hone your descriptive writing skills

Art historian Amy E. Herman uses fine art to teach everyone from FBI agents to ER nurses how to be better at their jobs. I use some of the methodology described in her book, Visual Intelligence, in my classroom, to help my students to become better observers of life — and, consequently, better writers.

One of her exercises involves using words to describe a painting they’re looking at to someone who’s never seen it before. To test the accuracy of what they’ve told their partners, they’re meant to draw what they think was described to them. The results are often comical — and revealing. The way you use words belies so much about who you are, from what you value to how you use language.

Working to hone this skill of description leads to richer, more impactful writing. And it can be practiced, every day, by writing alt-text.

What is alt-text?

“Alt-text,” “alt-tags,” and “alt-descriptions” all mean the same thing. Briefly, it’s text that’s used by screen readers to help blind or low-vision users to understand what’s on the page since they may not be able to fully see the picture. The text, therefore, has to convey the same information that a sighted user would see.

A note on accessibility — people who live in places with low bandwidth might also choose to omit all the pictures loading on a website, allowing them to access the site and its information faster. So if you don’t have alt-text built into your website or a post or article you’re writing, those users won’t have access to what you’re trying to convey.

Finally, good alt-text is also good for search engine optimization. Search engines crawl all the text that’s available, so you might be missing out on some users if you don’t write alt-text for your informative images.

All-image posts need great alt-text

In your inbox, you might get posts that are all images. Advertisements are a good example. You’ll see posts that are just one big picture. And if the advertiser didn’t think of adding in alt-text and your email client automatically strips out the photos, say, for security reasons, then all you’re left with is a big, blank email.

Borrrring. And a total wasted opportunity. Or say you have a friend who uses Facebook with a screen reader or a slow internet connection. If you don’t include alt-text (although, Facebook does have an auto alt-text generator), not everyone may be able to “see” your photos.

Another example: A few months ago, I made a Medium post that was all illustration. But then I realized that it wouldn’t be accessible to folks who rely on alt-text, so I tried to reproduce the whole thing in alt-text. There was a wrinkle: Alt-text is sometimes limited to 100 characters or so per picture/illustration. (Here at Medium, it’s 500 characters.)

I asked accessibility expert Courtney Craven for some guidance. They said the best way to manage it was to reproduce the post using type, thus allowing people with low vision, blindness, or low bandwidth to access the post. And it was while I was writing that version of the post that I realized a few things about the process and about myself.

Thinking of alt-text encourages me to be intentional

I have been at this writing thing for a long time. I am practiced at drafting and editing for exactly what I want to say. But I am less well-versed in choosing photos to go with my posts.

Knowing I’m going to be writing alt-text for visual imagery helps me to see which images really make sense for the narrative. For instance, in this post, I wrote a section about how when the poop hits the fan, everything suddenly becomes more sharply defined. But the photo I chose for that particular section is a picture of some fuzzed-out Christmas lights, which — now that I’m looking at it—doesn’t add much to the narrative.

I mean, check it out. This really should just be noted as a decorative image, and then it’s just kind of taking up space, providing eye candy.

Something better would have been a magnifying glass, maybe, or a set of reading glasses.

Writing alt-text helps me to see what really matters

In the actual act of writing alt-text, I am looking closely at which words I’m choosing to describe what I believe the picture conveys, which reminded me of Herman’s test for her students: Am I accurately relating what this image depicts? For instance, let’s take a look at the photo below:

I’m tempted to write that the woman in the picture is thoughtfully looking at the computer screen. That the mood is soft and so must be her thought processes. That the empty cup of coffee near her denotes that she has been there a long time. But, while these assumptions might be correct, they’d be less than accurate.

Accurate alt-text would say that a woman is typing on her laptop in front of an open window. Better alt-text would say that the lighting is like a sunset. And that the screen is blank and that an empty cup is near her with glasses. (We don’t even know if it was coffee she was drinking or if there was anything in there in the first place.)

In part, I’m practicing my specificity, which is a quick, efficient way to sharpen your writing.

It’s fine to use alt-text to convey a mood, but it’s also useful to me to notice what jumps out at me first. It helps me to understand myself better as a writer.

Writing alt-text helps me to understand what matters to me

Using the above example, the first thing that jumps out to me, to this specific writer, is the cracked-open window. Because I’m prone to atmospherics, I’m very interested in what mood the woman in the photo is experiencing. How she’s feeling, how she got to this place, why she chose it.

So noticing what stands out to my limited point of view is a very useful way of also noticing what my implicit associations are, what biases I might be carrying around.

Herman uses artist Tony Matelli’s sculpture “Sleepwalker” as an example. Here it is:

It’s a hyper-realistic sculpture of a guy sleepwalking. At first glance, it might be kind of humorous, especially since he’s in his underwear in all kinds of weather. I’m inclined to look for the humor in things first. And maybe I just think tighty-whities are funny on dad bods.

But then I found out that this sculpture lived at Wellesley College, an all-female college, and that changed something for me. Suddenly, this sculpture seemed creepy. Too real to be artistic. It was in the uncanny valley, and if I were to come across it at night, unaware of its provenance, I think I might be really scared.

My personal association of a white man in his underwear is relatively benign. But to any number of other people, this could be downright terrifying.

Writing alt-text allows me to see what I pay attention to first. It gives me time and space, in a relatively low-pressure environment, to notice these things. And I can put that knowledge to use in my life outside of alt-text later.

I’m just now beginning to understand how paying closer attention to accessibility benefits everything around me. But I don’t think I expected that being more aware of it would also help to benefit who I am as a writer.

Sometimes, it’s the stuff in the background that provides the most information, so maybe it should start taking up more of our attention.