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Writing Image Descriptions

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Course Overview:

Image descriptions are an essential part of digital accessibility. Getting image descriptions right takes expertise. We’ll start with a summary of relevant guidelines, rules and requirements for online image descriptions. Then we’ll share best practices for writing descriptions for various types of images, including information on how and when to convey information about race, ethnicity and disability when describing people in images.

Learning Objectives

  • Applicable guidelines

    Learn the digital accessibility standards in place that guide image descriptions.
  • Image description principles

    Learn the basic principles for a wide range of image types.
  • Describing individuals

    Learn the language to use an avoid when describing an individual person.
  • Describing objects

    Learn how to describe objects with relevant details.
  • Social media

    Learn how to provide image descriptions across social media platforms.

Audience:

This training is primarily intended for authors, writers and content creators, but also recommended for designers, developers and digital marketing personnel.

Time estimate:

This training typically takes 1.5 hours.

Topics covered:

During this training, we typically cover the following topics:

  • Digital access standards/WCAG in brief
  • Basic principles of image description
    • Informative images
    • Decorative images
    • Long image descriptions
    • Complex images
      • Graphs, charts, infographics
    • Images of text
  • Describing individuals
    • Gender, age, ethnicity
    • Appearance
    • Identity
    • Describing people in groups
    • Describing people with disabilities
      • Language to use and avoid
  • Describing objects
    • Large objects
    • Smaller objects
  • Working with images in social media
    • Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
    • Understanding image description constraints in social media
  • Resources

Frequently Asked Questions

We’re here to help you achieve better digital accessibility. If you can’t find an answer you need, please contact us.

 

Our team makes training recommendations based on your unique needs and project timeline. We incorporate training strategically, weaving sessions into your project, so that your teams have the skills they need when they need them, making an immediate impact. Building skills in-house throughout our engagement sets you up for continued success.

As many as you’d like! We don’t limit participants, because as educators, our goal is to build your organization’s skills. We open up our training to your entire team, so you have the help you need to sustain accessibility across your organization.

Of course you can! As you train with us, you can develop your own internal training library, which can serve as a resource for your current and future employees.

Yes, we can work with your vendor! We recommend training be provided in the most accessible format possible and will work directly with your caption provider to implement. If you don’t have a caption provider, we can make recommendations.

Talk to an expert about your accessibility needs.

We’re excited to partner with you to help your organization reach, engage and serve more people, more fully.
Schedule a Free Consultation
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