Alt-text is a brief, descriptive, and accurate written description of an image. For the visually impaired, alt-text is essential. Without it they have no access to the majority of media.
How To: Upload your photo to Instagram as you normally would. In the ‘Compose’ screen, before you hit publish:
- go to ‘Advanced Settings’
- scroll down to ‘Accessibility’
- select ‘Write Alt-text’
- Write your alt text description in the box and tap ‘Done’
- Copy this alt-text description into the caption below your normal caption
- Descriptions in “Alt-text” can only be accessed with screen readers, but not all students with visual disabilities have screen readers so they would only be able to access “Alt-text” if you write it in your caption
- Post!
Additional Notes:
- If the post is a flier, include all key information (club, date, place, etc) in the Alt-text
- For hashtags, capitalize the first letter of each word
- #ilovenirches→#ILoveNirches
- Without capitalization, the screen reader would read it as one word
- If someone is specifically featured in the post, put their name in the Alt-Text
- President Harvey and S.A. President Nia Johnson eat Nirche on the peacequad
- Acronyms must have periods
- SA→ S.A.
- Without periods, the screen reader would read it as one word
Examples:
- Social Media Flyer:
Take this flyer:
- The alt-text description of this flyer would be: “The S.A. is holding a town hall on June 26th, 4 A.M., in room U.U. 101. Limited to 100 participants and free food & refreshments will be provided.”
- Click the images below to go through the step-by-step process to correctly format alt-text for your posts.
- Photo
- The Alt Text for this image would be: “The sun sets over Hinman parking lot as a student’s family helps them unpack.”
- Video
- The Alt Text for this video would be: “Members of the local Binghamton community eating and talking at the Binghamton Pond Festival.”
- Multiple Media
- Alt Text:
- Image 1: Members of the Public Service Learning Community (P.S.L.C.) pick pumpkins from President Harvey’s farm.
- Picture 2: Member of the P.S.L.C., Luca Cassidy, proudly holding 2 pumpkins.
- Picture 3: Members of P.S.L.C. with their professor, Dr. Campbell, stand behind all the pumpkins they picked from President Harvey’s farm.
- Alt Text:
All students deserve equal access to videos, whether they face a visual, hearing, or language barrier, so videos should have closed captions. There are a couple of ways to add closed captions to your videos.
Instagram’s Own Services:
Reels:
- Pick a video that is 90 seconds or less
- Press the sticker in the top right corner, immediate left of “Aa”
- Press “CAPTIONS” sticker
- Edit captions and decide where to place them
- Press Next
- In Captions, write “Alt-Text:” and below it write a brief description of what happens in the video
- For more instructions, please see the “Alt-Text” section above
- Go to advanced settings and make sure “Show Captions” is turned on if automated captions are not appearing
- Post!
The video:The step-by-step process:
Videos:
- Instagram provides no service that can caption videos that are not reels
CapCut or Other Third Party Service for Longer Videos:
CapCut:
- Upload the video or video clips
- Press the “Text” option on the left
- Press “Auto Captions”
- You can either create automated closed captions or write your own
- You can edit the closed captions to your liking by clicking on them and playing around with the options on the right
- Once done, press export, and then download
- Upload the video to Instagram
- Remember to put in Alt-Text in the Alt-Text section and in your caption, if your confused on how to do this, please see the Alt-Text section
Important reminder: you do not have to describe everything that happens in the video, especially if it’s long, just give a rough summary of what happens in it
The video:
The step-by-step process:
The captioned video:
A Closing Reminder
This is a work in progress, if you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to reach out to the V.P.S.S. office at vpss@binghamtonsa.org. We will love to hear from you, whether it is a question about Alt-Text/close captions or a suggestion on how we can improve this page.
Lastly, please provide Alt-Text and closed captions in the future. There are many students who are unable to participate on campus because they do not have access to simple things, like promotional materials on Instagram. This is a simple fix, but it can have monumental effects on individuals and maybe even your organizations. Who knows, an individual who could have transformed your club may have been unable to access your organization because they struggled to access your promotional materials. A final point: no one group benefits from this, we all do.
“Part of the problem is that we tend to think that equality is about treating everyone the same, when it’s not. It’s about fairness. It’s about equity of access.” – Judith Heumann, Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist