Tips for Writing Alt Text
Alternative text, or alt text, is a description of images that is made available to
screen-reader users. Its purpose is to help users with visual disabilities understand
important information being conveyed in the imagery used in our digital communications.
Alt text is embedded in the code of the document or web page and is not visible to
most users.
Alt text basics
- Keep it short, anywhere from a few words to a sentence is usually fine.
- Describe the meaningful visuals of a page. Often this means who's in the image, what
they're doing, and where they are.
- Avoid including "Photo of..." or "Image of..." in your alt text. Screen readers will
automatically announce that it is an image.
- Many apps autogenerate inaccurate alt text. Please review alt text for all images
before publishing or sharing your document.
- You do not need to repeat information that can be gotten elsewhere in the document
or post. For instance, for an image that contains the date of an upcoming event, the
alt text does not need to include the date if the information is available in the
main text of the document.
Some nuances
- For images that are purely decorative, you can leave the alt text blank so the screen
reader skips it. NOTE: Many apps require alt text.
- If an image is functional, describe its purpose rather than it's visuals. For instance,
use "Search" as opposed to "Magnifying glass icon".
Pro tip: Use Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft Copilot is great at writing alt text. Harper employees can visit https://copilot.cloud.microsoft to access Copilot. Once you're signed in with your Harper account, just upload or
paste in the image and prompt Copilot as follows: "Write a short alt text description
for this image, following best practices."
Important: Make sure you're signed in to Copilot with your Harper account to ensure Enterprise Data Protection for the image.
