黑料社

• Web accessibility training
• Foundation-level training for T4 editors
• Working with images
• Describing people

Describing people

Profile pages

If your profile image will not be clickable (i.e. no page or modal opens when you click on it) then it must have alt text. 

Always include:

• the person's academic title, if applicable, and their name so that the listener is sure who is being described.
• what they're doing, if they're doing anything.
• their location, if relevant or distinctive. Some people choose a specific location because their work is associated with it, or it reflects their personality. A plain grey background, on the other hand, does not need description.

Never include:

• references to age or ethnicity.
• gendered pronouns (she/he/her/him) unless these are known for the person you're writing about. You may find this information on their full profile, contact card or in their email signature. If you don't know, ideally avoid pronouns altogether but if it would help your description to use one, use 'they/them'.
• impressions or value judgements, for example 'pretty necklace'.

Beyond this, you have a total of 125 characters, including the information you already have, so you will need to be selective but including any of the following helps to convey their portrait:

• their expression if they're smiling or laughing
• what they're wearing, including jewellery
• any distinguishing features - e.g. glasses, a beard, curly hair, red hair

Don't include what you can't see

As with all alt text, do not include any information that cannot be seen in the image. So for example:

• don't say that they are sitting or standing if you can't actually see which is the case.
• if they're looking at something outside of the frame, don't say what it is even if you happen to know.
• if they're at an event, don't say what the event was.
• It's fine to name a place if, from the image alone, it would be recognisable to a sighted person familiar with that place. For example, someone sitting in front of Big Ben should have this information included, whereas a close-up of someone sitting on a bench in Regent's Park, with no visible landmarks, is also in London, but this wouldn't be clear to a sighted person so shouldn't be included in the alt text.

Don't include comments about age such as 'young', 'middle-aged', 'elderly' unless age is directly relevant to the content of the page, such as a page about teenage parents or a visit to a retirement home.

Qualify statements as best you can in the time you have, for example these could all describe the same image - the first four are passable, the last one isn't really sufficient:

• Rolls-Royce Phantom I (best)
• 1920s car (vague but still a strong impression)
• vintage car (just means old and smart)
• classic car (same sort of idea but could mean a newer model)
• old car (too vague)

Does your image need a caption?

If you want to include information that isn't present in the image, such as the date or location of an event, this should be done using a caption, not alt text, so that it's also available to the sighted readers of your page.