Image accessibility: Alt text vs. image descriptions

At a webinar I recently attended, “Inclusive Accessibility: Beyond Colors and Captions” hosted by Eduflow Academy, speaker Bela Gaytan offered a big overview of some lesser-known accessibility measures we should be aware of in learning design.

One of my biggest takeaways from that session was the differences between alt text and image descriptions. As I learned from Bela, these are two different accessibility measures with different functions and purposes.

While she was talking, in my head I was already imagining the comparison below, so today I share it with you!

A note that I am following image description best practices here: since I’m offering an infographic (aka image) with text, I’m also providing a text-only version of the same information below to make it accessible to screenreaders.