Thoughts on professional portrait (headshot) images?

Hello WAI-IG,

I’ve been giving some thought to whether headshot images should include alt text, especially when they’re adjacent to the pictured individual’s name.

I’ve seen some opinions that say the image is meaningful because it’s conveying an impression. I also recognize that adding alt text to a series of profiles like this could weigh down the screen reader experience with seemingly redundant information.

I’m leaning toward the latter, but I’d like to hear opinions/perspective from the group, or any information that there’s a standard/codified best practice here.

WAI’s examples for Informative Images<https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/informative/> and Decorative Images<https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/decorative/> both come close, but neither directly address this use case.

w3.org’s People directory<https://www.w3.org/People> uses “Photo of [first name] [last name]” as its alt text, which leads me to second-guess my instinct here.

Thank you for any thoughts.

Casey Hickey
Digital Accessibility Manager
Information Technology Services
Northeastern University