Self-Editing Tip # 15: Make Sure You Add ‘Alt Text’ to Your Images

It helps with both accessibility and discoverability.

What the heck is Alt Text?

Alt stands for alternative.

So Alt Text is a way for visually impaired people and others to read a description of the images you use on Medium to illustrate your posts. It’s also one more way for Google to lead folks to your stories. That’s why it’s good to have a few keywords in there if at all possible.

Most of us use an image — either a photo or a graphic under our title and subtitle. And Medium encourages us to do so, since, along with headlines and subheads, images attract readers.

Sometimes, we add additional images to make our stories pop. Or to show the reader what we mean as we tell her a story or how to do something. Images are especially important when we have step-by-step instructions on how to do something.

BrandyNicoleHammock’s story, My Uncle’s Tragic Life is a recent example. Brandy, you can still go back in and add your Alt Text.

When we import an image, we can leave it the size it shows up in. Or we can enlarge it. If we’re using the built-in Unsplash source for images, get our choice of small, medium, and large.

Small is the width of the column. Medium is a bit larger than that. And large goes all the way to the edge of the page. It’s huge and not usually recommended.

How do we size our images?

When your story’s in edit mode, you can import your image. Once you do, you can click the three dots at the top of your image on the right. When you do, a menu comes up with icons for each of the size options. If you’re doing a newsletter, there’s only one size option

In either case, the menu also says ‘Alt Text.”

Click on that.

When you do, it takes you to a screen where you can write a description of your image. The image also comes up so you can refer to it. How quickly we lose details so this is a helpful feature.

How should we describe our images?

Details are good here.

For this image, for example, you could say, “A cat yawns on a bed.”

But you can do better than that. In fact, your descriptions should connect your image to your story, including the why or theme of your story.

Why did you pick this particular image?

This story could be about cats. It could be about sleep. It could be about monochromatic bedroom color schemes. The wording might vary accordingly.

For example: If it was about cats, you might write, “An orange and white tabby cat yawns so wide, its eyes shut.” If it’s about sleep, you might say, “A tabby cat rests on a down-turned comforter, near the pillow, yawning at the camera.”

For the decorator story, you might write, “A sleepy cat yawns, on a soft white patterned comforter, pulled back to reveal matching sheets.” If your focus is the bed linens or sleep, you don’t need to say what color the cat is.

Some guidelines to help you plan your Alt Text from Digital Accessibility:

• Add alt text to all non-decorative images.
• Keep it short and descriptive, like a tweet.
• Don’t include “image of” or “photo of”.
• Leave alt text blank if the image is purely decorative
• It’s not necessary to add text in the Title field.
• Use no more than 125 characters. Marilyn Flower

Once you add the Alt Text, the word appears in green letters, instead of the usual white, FYI. I know what you’re thinking. Or at least, I think I do. Darn! Now do I have to go back and add Alt Text to all my Medium posts? That may be a lot. I post almost daily and often forget to do this. My hope is in writing this, I’ll remember to do it myself more often.

But just in case you’re bored one day and have nothing to do.

Marilyn Flower is a sacred fool who writes fiction, poetry, and blogs, inspired by the practice of SoulCollage®. Her books: Developing Characters: Fun Ways to Cast Your Fiction, Creative Blogging, Bucket Listers. Follow her Sacred Foolishness or SoulCollage® for Writers, and Stay in touch!