[CANCELLED] Beyond “99 Red Balloons” – A Pragmatic guide to alternative text

Handouts

Presented at 8:00am in Gov Square 14 (Lab) on Thursday, November 18, 2021.

#34472

Speaker(s)

  • AmyJune Hineline, Community Ambassador and QA Engineer, Kanopi Studios

Session Details

  • Length of Session: 2-hr
  • Format: Interactive/Discussion
  • Expertise Level: Beginner
  • Type of session: General Conference

Summary

Images support and add context to our information and concepts. They can act as visual cues and help some users orient themselves on a page. Media include images for conversions; having images on posts leads to a higher clickthrough rate and ROI. Images can be simple and easy to add alternative text, but they can also be more complex like infographics, charts, or maps. Let's take a nostalgic walk through the 80s music scene and ensure our alt text conveys the information in a meaningful way.

Abstract

We love to include images on our websites and digital assets. Images support and add context to our information and concepts. They can act as visual cues and help some users orient themselves on a page. Media, especially social media, include images for conversions; having images on posts leads to a higher clickthrough rate and ROI (return on investment).

Images can be simple and easy to add alternative text, but they can also be more complex like infographics, charts, or maps.

Let's take a nostalgic walk through some imagery from the 80s music scene and ensure our alt text conveys the information in a meaningful way for those who cannot access the images visually. From 99 Red Balloons shaking us all night long, to Burning Down the House we don’t want to leave any of our users behind.

Keypoints

  1. Images can be simple and easy to add alternative text, but they can also be more complex.
  2. Media include images for conversions; having images on posts leads to a higher ROI.
  3. We should provide a text alternative for images.

Disability Areas

Cognitive/Learning, Vision

Topic Areas

Accessible Educational Materials, Assistive Technology, Uncategorized, Web/Media/App Access

Speaker Bio(s)

AmyJune Hineline

AmyJune is an active contributor in the open-source world. As the Open Source Community Ambassador at Kanopi Studios, with a dual focus on both open-source community development and inclusivity, she is uniquely positioned to help individuals become more comfortable and confident as they contribute to their communities.

Her ongoing experience as a hospice nurse keeps her in touch with the challenges faced by many end-users. In her continued efforts to make a difference, she helps organize A11yTalks, an online meetup where they invite folks on every month to talk about all things accessibility - one of the core components of building an inclusive web.

In addition to her work building community connections, AmyJune is an avid geocacher, noted Volkswagen enthusiast, and eats with her elbows on the table.

Handout(s)

AHG 2021 Handout - Beyond _99 Red Balloons_ - A Pragmatic guide to alternative text