Some students use screen readers to access online content. This is software that literally reads text on the screen. Images without or with poor alt text that normally add context or clarity to your content can be of little use without proper alternatives or informative alt-text.
Other Options
Sometimes you really like that graphic, it makes a lot of sense for sighted students. Consider choosing one of the following suggestions to provide an alternative to your less sighted students:
- Informatively caption your images (describe less of the visual makeup of the image and more of its worth to the content)
- Make images redundant to your text content and leave the alt text blank.
- If your image is of a visual representation of graphical data, create a data table instead or in addition to your image with blank alt text.