Originally published on June 4, 2018
When I was chatting with one of my friends this week about alternative text for images, I asked them if they knew they could add alt text to images on Facebook.
They replied they didn’t know.
I wasn’t surprised. Though the feature has been out for two years, not many people know about it.
Which is why two years ago, I conducted a poll asking followers on Twitter and Facebook whether they added alternative text (alt text) to the photos they post on Facebook.
Every person who responded to the poll said they didn’t know they could.
If you share images on Facebook, do you add alternative text to the image?
— Deborah Edwards-Onoro (@redcrew) May 30, 2018
I’ve never understood why Facebook didn’t promote their new feature for alternative text. It’s something many people had been asking for over the years.
Certainly it didn’t receive the wide publicity that happened when Twitter announced the alternative text feature for images a couple of years prior.
To teach people about the new feature, I published this post with how-to’s for adding alternative text to images in Facebook.
Almost two years later, and given my friend didn’t know about Facebook’s alternative text feature, I decided it was time to repeat the poll.
The final results from the Twitter poll are more positive than two years ago. Not as much movement as I hoped, but small steps.
If you share images on Facebook, do you add alternative text to the image?
— Deborah Edwards-Onoro (@redcrew) April 1, 2020
It’s clear there’s more work to do to educate Facebook users about adding alternative text to images. Read on to learn more.
What is Alternative Text?
Alternative text, also known as alt text, allows you to add text descriptions to photos, diagrams, and illustrations.
It provides more information about the function and content of images.
By adding alternative text, the content is accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired.
Another benefit of alternative text: if an image can’t be downloaded or if a user has disabled images from displaying (as in an email app), the alternative text will display where the image would normally show up.
Alternative text also provides semantic meaning to search engines who can’t “see” images.
How to Add Alternative Text to Photos You Post on Facebook
Assuming you have logged into Facebook on the desktop, here’s how to add alternative text to your photos.
- Select Photo/Video at the top of your News Feed or timeline
- Select the photo you want to add
- Select Edit Photo (you may need to hover over the photo)
- In the photo editing options, select Alt Text
- Select Override generated alt text
- Add your own descriptive alt text in the box.
Note: Facebook will warn you when you have gone over 100 characters
- Select Save
Two years ago, there was no option on the Facebook mobile app to add alt text to photos you upload.
However, that’s now changed for Facebook’s iOS app. To add alternative text in the iOS app:
- Add the photo to your post
- Share the post on Facebook
- Navigate to your post and select the photo in the post
- Press down on the photo
- In the menu that displays, select Edit Alt Text
- Delete the auto-generated alt text and enter your own alt text
- Select Save
For people using Facebook’s Android app, the only option available at this time (April 2020) is:
- Post the image in Facebook’s Android app
- Log in to Facebook desktop
- Edit the post
- Follow steps 3 to 7 for adding alternative text on desktop
Summary
Adding alternative text to Facebook makes your images accessible to everyone.
Given Facebook provides the option on desktop and their iOS app, I hope they add the alternative text feature on the Facebook Android app soon.
Did you know Facebook allowed you to add alternative text to images? Have you used it?
Great article Deborah!
We also did some testing on the alt text and found some surprise results regarding who is identified by the automatic alt text and other ways the alt text gets used.
We shared them in a blog post.
Thank you, Jennie.
Appreciate you sharing your blog post about Facebook image descriptions and alt text. Your post goes into more detail on how Facebook determines what to add to their image description, as well as privacy issues we all need to be aware of when writing alt text. Thank you!