Making your collection accessible

Making your collection accessible

You may already take measures to ensure that your physical collection is accessible to those with vision impairment or other disabilities, but digital accessibility is just as important. We want to ensure that our collections can be enjoyed by everyone and there are steps we can take to make our online collections more accessible. 


TOOLS FOR ACCESSIBILITY

Image descriptions allow users of assistive technology such as text-readers, a more equitable experience when accessing digital content. Assistive technologies may be used by those who are blind or vision-impaired. This means that the same information is available to every visitor to your item page, inclusive of their diverse abilities. Image descriptions also make your collection images more discoverable by providing information about image content that is in turn searchable by the public.


WHAT IS ALT-TEXT?

Image descriptions are commonly referred to as alternative text (hereafter alt-text) in digital spaces. Alt-text is different from a caption. While a caption might contain photographer credits or the specifications of a collection item, alt-text is purely a description of image content. Also, while a caption is displayed on the page, alt-text is not always visible. 
GUIDELINES FOR ADDING ALT-TEXT TO IMAGES

When you upload a media file to Victorian Collections, you can easily add alt-text in the Media section of the Victorian Collections cataogue. When crafting your alt-text, describe the information most important to understanding the image first and then branch out into finer details – this means you might leave out minor or peripheral details.


BE BRIEF

  1. Keep the description under 30 words
  2. Keep it simple and avoid jargon


BE OBJECTIVE

  1. Only document what you can see, this is not a place for interpretation
  2. Do not start with “Image of…”, as this is redundant information. Launch straight in to a description of the subject matter.
  3. If the media or material is especially important, you may start with “Painting of…”, “Watercolour depicting…”


BE LOGICAL
  1. Describe logically e.g. from left to right or foreground first then background


BE RESPECTFUL

  1. Do not assume race. Alt-text typically uses skin tone in descriptions to describe people in images unless ethnic identity can be known and verified
  2. Do not assume gender. Where gender is clearly performed it may be described, otherwise use pronouns “they, them” and “person” and document their physical characteristics
  3. You can record physical attributes and age if self-evident and not an interpretation

GLOSSARY

Alt-text: a short description that provides a general sense of the content of an image


FURTHER RESOURCES

  1. Guidelines for Image Descriptions, Cooper Hewitt, https://www.cooperhewitt.org/cooper-hewitt-guidelines-for-image-description/Accessibility Techniques for Museum Web Sites, 

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