{"id":8688,"date":"2015-11-05T13:24:56","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T18:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/?p=8688"},"modified":"2015-11-05T13:24:56","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T18:24:56","slug":"when-alt-text-is-not-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/when-alt-text-is-not-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"When &#8220;Alt Text&#8221; is not Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by Janice Florent<\/p>\n<p>Computers can read text on a screen but images, graphs, and charts are meaningless to visually impaired users. <a href=\"http:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/bb-accessibility-tip-alt-text\/\">Alternative text (alt text)<\/a> is an alternate method for supplying information about images, graphs, and charts to users who are visually impaired. <\/p>\n<p>Adding alt text to images, graphs, and charts is an important part of making them accessible. Most images, graphs, and charts can be made accessible using alt text descriptions. However, complex images, graphs, and charts require more detailed description than the limited one or two brief sentences that are used in the alt text. <\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/diagramcenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/STEMimages-300x187.png\" title=\"complex images\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/diagramcenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/STEMimages-300x187.png?resize=375%2C234\" alt=\"complex scientific images\" height=\"234\" width=\"375\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom:5px\"><small>Examples of complex scientific images<\/small><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>What should you do when you have a complex image, graph, or chart whose meaning cannot be conveyed with alt text alone? There are several ways to handle complex images where a short description is not possible. The best solution is to include a thorough description of the complex image in the content of the page, immediately before or after the image.  If you don\u2019t want to add more content to your page, another preferred alternative is to create another web page with the thorough description of the complex image and link to it near the image.<\/p>\n<p>You may be wondering what exactly should you include in the <strong>thorough description<\/strong>. The <a href=\"http:\/\/diagramcenter.org\/\">Diagram Center<\/a> (Digital Image And Graphic Resources for Accessible Materials) is an excellent resource that provides comprehensive guidelines to make it easier for you to <a href=\"http:\/\/diagramcenter.org\/table-of-contents-2.html#contents\">make complex images accessible<\/a> to all learners.<\/p>\n<p>Here are a few additional resources to help you with describing complex images:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/ncam.wgbh.org\/experience_learn\/educational_media\/stemdx\">Effective practices for description of science content<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artbeyondsight.org\/handbook\/acs-onlinetraining.shtml\">How do we access meaning in art?<\/a> (Describing art images)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/kn.open.ac.uk\/public\/workspace.cfm?wpid=2709\">Open University's guidelines for describing visual teaching materials<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is extremely important for students with disabilities to have access to accessible course content. Describing complex images utilizing these tips is good course design. Even though you may not have a student with a disability currently enrolled in your course, you will find students without disabilities will take advantage of accessible content as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Janice Florent Computers can read text on a screen but images, graphs, and charts are meaningless to visually impaired users. Alternative text (alt text) is an alternate method for supplying information about images, graphs, and charts to users who are visually impaired. Adding alt text to images, graphs, and charts is an important part <a href=\"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/when-alt-text-is-not-enough\/\" class=\"more-link\">...continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \"When &#8220;Alt Text&#8221; is not Enough\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,4,8],"tags":[16],"class_list":{"0":"post-8688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-accessibility-kneads","7":"category-online","8":"category-teaching","9":"tag-accessibility","10":"h-entry","11":"hentry","12":"h-as-article"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p82MQk-2g8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":22237,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/brightspace-accessibility-tip-when-alt-text-is-not-enough-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":8688,"position":0},"title":"Brightspace Accessibility Tip: When &#8220;Alt Text&#8221; is not Enough","author":"Janice Florent","date":"March 2, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Brightspace, our Learning Management System (LMS), is designed with accessibility in mind. However, it is the responsibility of the instructor and\/or course designer to ensure their course content is formatted using best practices for accessibility; including the use of good heading structure, text formatting, contrast and color, descriptive links, alternative\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Accessibility Kneads&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Accessibility Kneads","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/accessibility-kneads\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"example of a infographic","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/3911\/14856982297_f0eca53ac1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14088,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/brightspace-accessibility-tip-when-alt-text-is-not-enough\/","url_meta":{"origin":8688,"position":1},"title":"Brightspace Accessibility Tip: When &#8220;Alt Text&#8221; is not Enough","author":"Janice Florent","date":"July 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Brightspace, our Learning Management System (LMS), was designed with accessibility in mind. However, it is the responsibility of the instructor and\/or course designer to ensure their course content is formatted using best practices for accessibility; including the use of good heading structure, text formatting, contrast and color, descriptive links, alternative\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Accessibility Kneads&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Accessibility Kneads","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/accessibility-kneads\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"example of a infographic","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/3911\/14856982297_f0eca53ac1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7792,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/bb-accessibility-tip-alt-text\/","url_meta":{"origin":8688,"position":2},"title":"Bb Accessibility Tip: Alt Text","author":"Janice Florent","date":"August 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Janice Florent The fourth tip in my series of accessibility related blog posts will focus on alternative text (alt text). Computers can read text on a screen but images, graphs, and charts are meaningless to visually impaired users. Alt text is an alternate method for supplying information about images\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Accessibility Kneads&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Accessibility Kneads","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/accessibility-kneads\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"blind female student listening to screen reader describe information on her computer screen","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/8507\/8492291615_58cf6db620_b.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14084,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/brightspace-accessibility-tip-alt-text\/","url_meta":{"origin":8688,"position":3},"title":"Brightspace Accessibility Tip: Alt Text","author":"Janice Florent","date":"July 27, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Brightspace, our Learning Management System (LMS), was designed with accessibility in mind. However, it is the responsibility of the instructor and\/or course designer to ensure their course content is formatted using best practices for accessibility; including the use of good heading structure, text formatting, contrast and color, descriptive links, alternative\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Accessibility Kneads&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Accessibility Kneads","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/accessibility-kneads\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"blind female student listening to screen reader describe information on his computer screen","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49520245268_ede5d3ea2a_b.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":22219,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/brightspace-accessibility-tip-alt-text-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":8688,"position":4},"title":"Brightspace Accessibility Tip: Alt Text","author":"Janice Florent","date":"March 1, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Brightspace, our Learning Management System (LMS), is designed with accessibility in mind. However, it is the responsibility of the instructor and\/or course designer to ensure their course content is formatted using best practices for accessibility; including the use of good heading structure, text formatting, contrast and color, descriptive links, alternative\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Accessibility Kneads&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Accessibility Kneads","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/accessibility-kneads\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Visually impaired student listening to screen reader describe information on computer screen","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/1892\/29592600237_639b9c8969_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8895,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/make-course-content-accessible\/","url_meta":{"origin":8688,"position":5},"title":"Make Course Content Accessible","author":"Janice Florent","date":"January 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"by Janice Florent One of the reasons hybrid and online courses appeal to students is when a course is well designed the student has the opportunity to playback or review a concept until they have mastered it. In order for course materials to be accessible for all learners the course\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Accessibility Kneads&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Accessibility Kneads","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/accessibility-kneads\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}