Images displayed on Drexel websites must contain alternative text, or "alt text," in accordance to federal Section 508 Accessibility compliance. Alt text is a short description that describes an image to visually-impaired users accessing a site through a screen reader.

Guidelines

• General images: alt text should convey the basic concept represented by the image. Examples would include a simple description of its topical content, e.g., "Interior of Main Building" ( Example); or an action, e.g., "President Fry being interviewed" ( Example).
• Images with text: if words are included as part of an image, consider whether being able to read that text effects a user's ability to understand the concept represented.
  • An image being used as a header — in which the text is providing important information — should have alt text that repeats the graphic text; e.g., "Drexel University In the News" ( Example).
  • If the words that are part of image are not important to its meaning, e.g., a magazine cover, a description would be more appropriate as the alt text: "Drexel Magazine Fall 2011 cover" ( Example).
• Decorative images: images that are purely decorative ( Example) that contain no informative value should have a single "space" (space bar) for alt text. This practice allows a screen reader to skip over an image as if it doesn't exist; otherwise, an image will be detected with a missing description, which will frustrate the user.

Adding Alt Text

Adding alt text to images in Sitecore is easy!

• After uploading a new image to the Media Library, simply fill out the Alt field under the Image section for the item. ( Image)