What's the difference between alt text and a photo caption?
In magazines, newspapers, and news sites, captions are typically written to support a photo, and usually depend on users being able to see the photo. A caption, particularly in the context of journalism, is used to supplement the information in the photo. The caption might tell you who is in the photo, the date the photo was taken, and where it was taken. Beyond that, journalism captions will often try to give context for that photo by sharing other information. It might include quotes from someone in the photo, or include statistics, or other references to things not directly in the photo.
So, for example, imagine a picture of people waiting outside a polling station on a sunny day. The caption might tell you when and where this was taken. But a caption might also tell you how many people showed up to that polling station that day, how many people voted in total, how hot it got outside, and whether the temperatures broke any records. None of these would be obvious to the sighted user, and that is why these details would be included in the caption: they'd add context.
Alt text, or alternative text, is text that users of screen readers get in place of an image. It's usually not visible to sighted users, but is coded into the site so that someone who is using a screen reader or Braille display can know what is in the image. Alt text and other image descriptions and are more concerned with what is actually in the image. And that's because alt text is meant to be the stand-in for the photo.
The traditional news caption does a good job of adding context to the image. But a traditional news caption does not stand in for a photo, as it was never meant to do that. It was meant to augment and add context to explain more about what was in the image. Captions are typically written to support a photo and be consumed in tandem with the photo. Alt text is meant to be the stand-in for the photo.
When writing alt text, focus on what is actually in the image. Any relevant information that isn't describing the image itself should be in a caption below the image, not in the alt text. This includes photo credits, permissions, and copyright information.
There is a trend on some sites that the alt text just duplicates whatever is in the caption. This means that screen reader users hear the information twice. On top of that, they end up missing on what is actually in the image. Alt text and photo captions serve different purposes, so they should not be identical to each other. Remember: They are different types of text for different purposes, so treat them accordingly.
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Writer at Arc Manor Publications ll
4moI applied for Liverpool. Must get round to pitching a few new ideas at some point