Social Media – guidelines, alt text, and more

Our social media accessibility guidelines

Here are some of the guidelines we’ve given our social media teams and freelancers when it comes to accessibility – you can download a copy below.

These include guidelines on creating accessible text-only social posts, how to create accessible lists, text on photography, overlaying images to improve legibility of text, and practical examples. It covers things like making sure there’s consistency with copy formatting, column proximity, not inserting large pieces of text into posts, the usage of opaque layers to make sure text is better visible, and much more.

Alt text on social media

What is alt text?

Alt text is making social media content more accessible by describing images so people with vision loss can understand and enjoy images too. See an example of alt text in action.


In the video below, you’ll see how a blind person uses Instagram. This is an older video, but it gives a good idea of why it’s important to make our social media channels accessible.

5 minute video by James Rath who is blind, explaining how he uses Instagram.

Why is adding an alt text important?

  1. It enables people with vision loss to contextually understand images, as the text can be read out by a screen reader

  2. People with learning and/or sensory processing disabilities can benefit from it

  3. If for some reason, like low bandwidth, an image can't be displayed on a website, the alt text will be visible instead

  4. Alt text is also used by search engines like Google to index images. which makes it easier to find information

Well-written alt text, whether on a company's website or other online platforms they use like social media channels, is an important step in making their online presence more accessible.

2 million

people in the UK could benefit from using a screen reader

(Sources: Nomensa)

Some tips for writing good alt text

It’s technically not very complicated to add alt text to images, especially on social channels, as all major platforms give you the option to easily add ALT text to imagery. See the section 'Adding alt text to social content' below. Good alt text is important though - badly executed alt text won't win you any fans, and it will harm the accessibility of your posts.

So how do you write a good alt text? Supercool has written a fantastic article about this with some great tips to help you get it right, which we've adapted with their permission below to tailor it more specific to usages of alt text in social media (although relevant for anyone using alt text). 

1

Precise and to the point

Describe the content of the image without fluff. Write what you see, rather than any guesses as to gender, ethnicity, wider context out of shot, to name a few.

One of the best suggestions Supercool give is around how you’d briefly describe the image over the phone.

You don't need loads of text – one or two sentences max, 125 characters or less (125 characters being a cut off limit for some screen readers - and some social channels have their own limits too).

2

Start right

By which we mean – there's no need to say 'image of'. If you've a page full of images, a screen reader constantly reading out 'image of' is going to get old very quickly. Instead, focus on the context, eg 'headshot of CEO', 'painting of flowers' 'chart showing price increases from 2021 to 2022'.

3

If there's text within the image, make sure and capture it

If there is text superimposed on the image, it is important to include that in your alt text, as it's likely part of the image context. For example: if there’s an image of Dalai Lama with his quote ‘sleep is the best meditation’ then the alt text would read as: “The Dalai Lama with his quote ‘Sleep is the best meditation.’"

4

Be mindful of emojis

A screen reader reads out an emoji as it is – for example, a ‘smiley’ emoji – 😊 will be read out as ‘smiling face with smiling eyes and rosy cheeks’. But if there are 😊😊😊😊 – it will be read out as ‘smiling face with smiling eyes and rosy cheeks, smiling face with smiling eyes and rosy cheeks, smiling face with smiling eyes and rosy cheeks, smiling face with smiling eyes and rosy cheeks’. Just a little annoying, so keep this is mind with the caption of your post as well! 

5

Test your alt text

Read your image descriptions out loud. Make sure they are useful and make sense.

Examples of alt texts, the bad and the good (thanks to Supercool)

Close up of a brown bear's face

The bear

  1. Bad: ‘We're zoomed-in on the face of a brown bear – sometimes known as a grizzly – gazing majestically into the middle distance. Perhaps she's hungry, or has spotted a threat?’
    Keep alt text short, remove additional narrative, and don't guess as to what else might be happening.

  2. Bad: ‘bear, brown bear, grizzly, grizzly bear, mammal, carnivore’
    This doesn't really tell us anything, and your SEO won't thank you either.

  3. Good: ‘Close-up of a brown bear's face’
    Nice - concise, clear, no guesses.

Fish & chips take away sign

The sign

  1. Bad: ‘Sign’
    What does 'sign' mean if you can't see the rest of the words? Not very much unfortunately - it could mean an instruction to add a signature, or is it sign language, is it an astrological sign? This is one of those cases where poor alt case makes it more confusing than no alt text.

  2. Bad: ‘takeaway, take away, fish and chips, fish, chips, shop, food, fast food’

  3. Good: ‘"Fish & chips take away" sign’
    Does what it says on the tin. Short, gives you clear understanding, with no extra detail.

For more tips, tricks, examples and context, read the full article from Supercool.

Adding alt text to social content

It is technically not very complicated to add alt text to images, especially on social channels, as all major platforms give you the option to easily add alt text to imagery.

Character limits

Please bear in mind that social channels or other content platforms have character limits when it comes to alt text.

  1. Facebook and Instagram: unlimited

  2. X/Twitter: 1000

  3. Pinterest: 500

  4. LinkedIn: 1000

Issues with adding alt text

If there are issues with adding alt text via the methods above / you need more room to describe something and can't fit it within the character limit / there’s a lot of text on an image (a screenreader can't read this – see example below), then you should add the alt text in the first comment below the post.

In this example, you can see a reference in the caption about the alt text being in the comments, so people will now know where to find it.

If you need to do this, you could say 'alt text for the image appears in the comments'.

Skyscanner social media post with the highlighted text "For those using screen readers, alt text has been added to the comments below.

Other tips to making your social media channels more accessible

  • Capitalising Hashtags 
    Capitalising the first letter of each word on a hashtag improves readability for people using screen readers. This helps the reader understand that they’re separate words rather than trying to read it all out as one word. 
    For example, without uppercase letters, the hashtag #superbowl could be read as #SuperBowl or the more amusing alternative, #SuperbOwl.

  • Avoid all caps if possible 
    When reading text, a large part of our understanding is actually made up of the shape of the word, rather than the individual letters. Putting words in all-caps can make it more difficult for people to quickly grasp what you’re saying, especially for those with reading difficulties such as dyslexia. 

Further reading

  1. Alt text, captions and titles for images by the Australian government

  2. An alt decision tree by the W3C

  3. Social media accessibility: A guide to alt text on social media by Tug

  4. Accessible images, icons and emojis by Up Your A11y (The content on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International)

Working with accessibility influencers and advocates

We love working with accessibility influencers and advocates - it’s a great way to spread the word on the importance of fully accessible travel, allyship and in providing information and insights into how to travel with a disability. There are a wealth of fantastic people out there who can speak from experience and help educate, entertain and inspire your social audiences. If this is new to you, start small, test and see what works best for you and go from there.

In the meantime, here’s some examples of the way we work with accessibility influencer Curb Free Cory Lee.

Instagram Live video with accessible travel influencer Cory Lee

Tips on booking a hotel as a wheelchair user

How to holiday on a budget with a wheelchair