Alt text
Any time an image appears in a web post, it must also include “alt text”. Alt text is a short written description of what’s in the image. It should include any text that appears in the document, along with description of any graphical elements.Finding specific information about good alt-text writing techniques is surprisingly tough. You can find general direction that it should be between 5 and 15 words.And while there are no actual limits on the length of alt-text, keep in mind that screen-readers will read outloud everything you write.As far as alt-tag primers that I’ve found, this is a pretty good one: https://www.bluehost.com/blog/what-is-alt-text/Do put effort into making headings and sentences as short and clear as possible
- It makes it easier for people who use assistive devices, and also a whole spectrum of other people, including:
- People just learning English or French.
- People with reading challenges.
- People who are more comfortable with oral instruction or direction
Do use Microsoft Words (or any other software’s) built-in headings and paragraph styles
- H1, H2, H3, H4, H5,H6 are understood by practically every device out there
- There should only be one H1 heading in a document
- You can have as many of the rest of the H headlines as you want. Use these to build the sections in the document
Do use bold and italic.
Just remember: less is moreDo not use underlines
- Underlines on a screen are almost universally understood to mean “you can click me.” Frustrating and weird when you click them and get nothing.
- This goes for print documents, too. Nobody is going to try to click a piece of paper or a poster (hopefully), but there is a very good chance that piece of paper or poster are going to end up on opseu.org
Do not use allcaps
- Research shows that allcaps are marginally harder for all people to decipher and understand. Maybe not a huge thing on its own, but what is the correct lower-case spelling of this OPSEU/SEFPO workplace: HOTEL DIEU GRACE HEALTHCARE?
Do use pictures and PDFs … but …
- Make sure all of the text in the picture and/or PDF is also included in the text of your post.
Do use tables, but do you really need to?
- Tables can be a great way to present info. But they can also be trouble.
- Step 1 is to ask: does this information really need to be in a table? If somebody is using a table for control over spacing, that’s not an appropriate use of a table. For exampe, there is no need to put this information in a table …
| 12:30pm | Lunch |
| 1:15pm | Afternoon session opens |
| 4:30 | Afternoon session ends |
… it is much more easily read and understood as a list:
- 12:30pm – Lunch
- 1:15pm – Afternoon session opens
- 4:30 – Afternoon session ends