Re: Thoughts on professional portrait (headshot) images?

Hi Casey,

> w3.org’s People directory <https://www.w3.org/People> uses “Photo of
[first name] [last name]” as its alt text


Yep. This topic has gone around before, and there really is no definitive
answer, however I will suggest that in context, it is helpful to provide
alt text in this scenario, as the photo of the person is (again, in
context) an important part of the overall "Bio sheet" content.

I've offered the following justification in the past: although a
non-sighted user will not see the image, a head-shot image is actually a
*VERY* important graphic file. Non-sighted users MAY want to show the photo
to a sighted colleague ("I want to meet this person" or "I need a photo of
Joe for this report I am writing for my manager" of similar types of uses),
and so in context it is NOT a decorative image (if we had to label it, it
is an "augmentative" image - not one of the 4 common categories of images).
So the "SEO" aspect here is also an important consideration at a higher
level.

While I am not a daily screen reader myself, I do not think that most
non-sighted users will be overly chuffed over a small bit of alternative
text in this case - remember as well that it is trivial to skip past images
and image alt-texts when using a screenreader, so on balance, while your
concern over overt verbosity is appreciated, I'll venture to suggest it
isn't an issue here.

My $0.02 - your mileage may vary.

JF

On Fri, Aug 19, 2022 at 10:21 AM Hickey, Casey <ca.hickey@northeastern.edu>
wrote:

> 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
>


-- 
*John Foliot* |
Senior Industry Specialist, Digital Accessibility |
W3C Accessibility Standards Contributor |

"I made this so long because I did not have time to make it shorter." -
Pascal "links go places, buttons do things"