Images are used to convey information in a visual manner. Images include icons, graphics, pictures, graphs, and diagrams. (Other images, such as video, are handled elsewhere in this document.) You may have a graphic showing a lit match to denote a hot tip – a visual way of drawing attention to an item. But for the person who cannot “see” your images, there are other ways of alerting your student to the tip, and all the other images, through the use of ALT tags and descriptive links.

An ALT tag is a short text statement of the information the image is intended to convey. It can be found by moving the mouse over the image. For example, the ALT tag “Save” appears when mousing over the icon of the disk on the toolbar at the top of a Word document.

Pictures, graphs and other visual images take more time to download than text. At times anyone might prefer to view a site more quickly by selecting a “text version”, or even shutting off images altogether. If an ALT tag is in place, some of the information conveyed by the image remains in a short text statement even when the image itself is not visable.

“Seeing” is a relative term. Actually seeing the hot tip icon is one thing, but for students with cognitive, attention or learning disabilities the message of the lit match icon may be lost. Students using screen readers to read the page also can not see the image. And for some students the image of the match just might not convey the intended meaning. In each of these situations, a short text description of the function of the image increases the likelihood that the picture of the match will convey the information intended.

View examples of pages with and without ALT tags

WebAIM, a non profit organization committed to accessible media for all, provides steps for adding ALT tags to your graphic.

Go to http://www.webaim.org/howto/graphics/accessiblegraphics3 to find helpful steps to creating your own ALT tags.