Can you recall the last time that you visited a site and you were not able to view pictures? You most likely began banging your keyboard in irritation. There is no need to do that because there is a simple way to ensure that it never happens again. This article will demonstrate how to determine whether an image has alt text, and how to add alt text when it is missing.
What Is Alt Text and Why It Matters
Alt text (alternative text) is a short description of an image, beneficial to people with visual impairments and SEO. By incorporating alt text in your images, you can improve the search engine optimisation (SEO) of your site by engines such as Google. To get a smooth increase in the number of TikTok followers, likes, and views, you may want to take advantage of the offers provided by TiktokStorm.
Checking whether an image has alt text or not can be tricky, but here is how it can be done.
To easily inspect whether an image contains alt text or not, right-click on the image and choose “View Image” option. This will open the picture file independently, apart form the web page. When the image file is open, one is able to view the text that had been inserted as the alt text in the Description field. In case nothing is written or the field is left blank, then the image has no alt text associated with it.
Adding Alt Text to Your images in WordPress
Tricky well, but here is how we do it. Log in to your WordPress account and tap on Media on your dashboard. Click on the image you wish to insert the alt text and finally click on the edit button. Then you will be interested to click on the “Gallery” tab. You will see the field in which you can insert the alternate text. Just type your alt text and press the button “Update File”. Don not forget to do this! It is a simple method of increasing the content of text in your webpage and increasing visitors to your webpage.
Alt Text Writing Tips
You now understand how to provide alt text to your images, it is now time to understand how to create effective alt text that best describes your image. The following are some tips:
- Less is more: Alt text ought to be concise and straight to the point, and not more than a sentence or two.
- Alternative text should describe the image: Your alt text should describe the contents of the image, rather than the purpose of the image.
- Keywords: Where possible, enter keywords that describe the image and your blog post. This will aid your images to appear in search results.
- Be Descriptive: Avoid explaining the overall impression of the image-be descriptive on what is going on in the photograph or graphical representation.
- Proofread: Before you post, be sure to check your alt text by proofreading it.
Alt Text: What to Do When an Image lacks Alt Text
And in case you encounter an image that lacks alt text, there is no need to panic. It is a relatively simple solution and the quicker you can include the alt text the better. To do it, you will, first of all, have to open your HTML document and, then, find the tag next to the image in question. In this tag, you will be able to include the alt text.
eg. In the case where the image is called/named dog then you would put alt=dog in that respective tag of course after putting the file name. After saving it, you can test whether it is functional by just refreshing the page.
It is important to keep in mind that best practice ensures that your alt text is extracted within the material context of your page or image and reflect what it contains. This enables people with accessibility needs such as blindness or visual impairment to know the contents of your webpage or contained in your images through the easy way of reading screen readers.
Image Optimization Tools to aid You in Identifying Your Images
Luckily, a few tools can assist you in highlighting which images are yet to have alt text added, and even optimize your images to ensure they load quicker.
The initial tool I would suggest is the Chrome extension, namely the ‘Alt Text Checker’. This plugin will assist you in establishing the images that are lacking the alt text easily, and you can even view the effect that the sizes of these images are having on the page loading times.
There exist also some nifty online utilities to optimize your image size prior to uploading them to your site. e.g. TinyPNG enables you to compress the files without quality loss. When it comes to bigger files (such as photos) you maycompressjpeg or compressor.io. They both have free versions and give you an opportunity to compress big pictures within a few clicks.
Best Practices of Image with Alt Text Usage
After you have taken your time to verify the presence of alt text on the images, you will be interested in giving some consideration to ensuring that your images are as accessible as possible. These are some of the best practices that you need to remember.
One, ensure that your image alt text is neither generic nor vague since it ought to necessarily define the content and context of your image. In case the description requires more space than available, it is okay to use several lines of the alt text in case of more complicated images.
Secondly, do not include words such as image of or picture of in your alt text unless necessary to the context. e.g. (when an article refers to a particular image) Rather, write about what you see in the image.
Thirdly, attempt to provide alternative methods of passing information where needed- say there is a graphic with numbers or data points on it, you can include this information in the alternative text too!
Alt Text Advantages
Alt text has other benefits besides simply helping your site be more accessible to those with disabilities.
To begin with, the proper alt text you will have written will serve to enhance the SEO rating of your site. When it comes to search engines such as Google, the alt text is used to determine the contents of the image. The more beneficial and more descriptive the alt text is, the higher you will appear in search engine results.
It also assists in creating a better image of what users will see once they click on your page or scroll down the content of the page. And even when an image cannot be displayed the users at least have a clue as to what it is that they are missing. Alt text is a highly effective method of describing an image in a quick and efficient manner, not getting too deep into detail – ideal for busy websites, or when loading speed is a priority.
Checking Image Alt Text in Safari
So we will proceed to Safari. In this browser, right-click on an image and choose the option of Inspect Element to check the presence of image alt text. This will give you a new window and you will be able to see the code which will be similar to this:
And in case you spot the alt property, then you know that there is alt text assigned to the image (in this example, it must be alt text). In case the absence of the “alt” property, there is no alt tag assigned to the image, thus you ought to create one.
locating alt tags on images desktop
On desktop, it is simple to see whether an image has alt text. To do this, all you have to do is to right-click on the image and then choose the option of Inspect on the menu. Next, find the line of code which has the alt text. It must appear something like this: In case it does not have any alt text then it will simply be and that is all. In case you require adding some, you simply need to open the line of code and place your description of the image between the quotation marks in the alt attribute.
How To Review Alt Text of An Image on Mobile
And the last point, when you want to check the presence of alt text on the image on the mobile device, the process is a bit different. What you need to do here is to open the image in a new tab. Most mobile devices will allow you to right-click or long-press the image and choose ‘Open Image in New Tab.
After the image has opened in a new tab, go to the inspect element option in your browser. This option must enable you to see the source code of the page and you must be able to see a section termed as alt or alt text. It will allow you to know whether there is any alt text on the image.
In case no alt text exists or appears to be incomplete, the next step would be to add the suitable alternate text to that image on your part. This will make your site accessible and people using screen readers to navigate the Web will have an idea of what is on each page.
FAQs
Checking an image has alt text can be a puzzling process, but we have gathered some of the most asked questions to get you out of this situation.
What is the primary intent of alt text?
Alt text describes an image, including what it depicts and its relevance and importance, to assistive technologies, including screen readers. This assists in ensuring that your digital content is accessible to all.
What about several images on a page?
You have to visit all the images one by one and ensure that all the images have a descriptive and informative alt text. Say, when one is a picture of a sunset and the other one is a picture of a beach, then both require different descriptions that should be able to depict what is on it.
Can the process be automatized in any way?
To find and fix all the images that lack a proper alt text description, you can run accessibility plugins or use such services as Wave or Ax to automatically scan the site and highlight all the problematic images and then correct them. Nevertheless, they should still be manually re-verified by going through the steps highlighted in this guide.
Conclusion
Now you know, how to check the presence of alt text on an image. It does not have to be a complicated procedure, although you should ensure that all your pictures have alternative text to ensure that even those who are not able to view the picture understand what is happening. In case you have any queries, or require any assistance on how to view alt text of an image, feel free to contact a professional.
