RE: Thoughts on professional portrait (headshot) images?

My take on this is that it can be contextual so:


  1.  Our people type listing. The screen reader uses I have discussed it with value knowing that there is a headshot - they can use that to help at meetings "We're looking for this guy..."
  2.  Personae. It depends - sometimes mugshots are used decoratively but sometimes they tell a wider story. Only the content author knows and they need to work out what the images are saying - I worked on a women's health site once and there was a gallery of case studies and my initial thought was decorative but digging deeper the headshots showed the racial and age breadth of the intended audience - and that's an important message - this info is for you. And it was a visual message that needed including in alt text
As always, don't look at what the image is - look at its message and alt text accordingly.

Kevin

From: Hickey, Casey <ca.hickey@northeastern.edu>
Sent: Saturday, 20 August 2022 2:22 am
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Thoughts on professional portrait (headshot) images?

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization.

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


Kevin Prince

Product Accessibility & Usability Consultant



E kevin.prince@fostermoore.com

Christchurch

fostermoore.com

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