Titles, Caption, Alt Text and Description (2024)

FAQs

Titles, Caption, Alt Text and Description? ›

Alternative text explains information in images for screen reader users. Captions describe images to help users relate them to surrounding text. Titles identify images and number them in long-form content.

Image descriptions tend to go more in-depth about visual details than alt text due to the larger character limit. For example, alt text might tell a user there is a puddle on the floor, but an image description might go into further detail and say there is a puddle of orange juice on a white tiled kitchen floor.

Captions and descriptions are often considered to be the same thing, but they are not, even though they occupy the same field in standard metadata fields. Captions are meant to be read by someone viewing the image whereas descriptions contain basic information that is meaningful to anyone working with the images.

For example, say a web page contains an image of an upward arrow that links to a table of contents. A text equivalent might be "Go to table of contents.” This would allow a user with a screen reader or other assistive technology to understand the purpose of the image without seeing it.

'Alt text' is a contraction of 'alternative text'. It's a short written description of an image, which makes sense of that image when it can't be viewed for some reason.

Images as Links: If the image is being used to link to another page, the alt text should describe what will happen when the image is clicked (rather than what it looks like). For example, the alt text for an image of a question mark that links to a help page should be “Contact Support” rather than “question mark.”

Think of it this way - a human reads the image title and a program (bot) reads the alt text of an image. So if you're keeping both the same, both should be understood by its readers. And you'll do fine.

An image description is a written caption that describes the essential information in an image. Image descriptions can define photos, graphics, gifs, and video — basically anything containing visual information.

Alt text gives the user a short condensed description, while long image descriptions provide explicit detail. Supplying text alternatives of visual media can significantly increase access to content for a wide range of users.

What is the difference between a title and a caption? ›

Captions describe images to help users relate them to surrounding text. Titles identify images and number them in long-form content.

Authoring alt text is similar to writing a caption for an image, but the two are different. An image caption is text that displays on the screen. Alternate text is read aloud to someone using assistive technology, but is hidden from a sighted user.

There are four main types of captions: standard, group, identification, and quote only.

Alt text on Instagram is an accessibility feature that makes Instagram content accessible to those who are visually impaired. Instagram alt text is added to each post and describes the content in a way that can be read out loud by a screen reader.

The alt text shouldn't be longer than a sentence or two—most of the time a few thoughtfully selected words will do. Consider what is important about an image. For example, important context might be the setting, the emotions on people's faces, the colors, or the relative sizes.

Title tags & alt tags are really for different things, the alt tag is to provide a text field to describe the image, the title tag is complementary to the image. Alt tags are used by things like screen readers for people with vision issues, and also used in the ranking of images. Title tags are not.

“alt” is for providing an image alt tag to describe the image to the search engine crawlers and the screen readers for better web accessibility. “title” is used to provide an explanation of the image alt tag and image URL within the “src” attribute.

The alt attribute is used instead of the image. If the image can't be shown, and in screen readers. The title attribute is shown along with the image, typically as a hover tooltip. One should not be used "instead" of the other. Each should be used properly, to do the things they were designed to do.