Icons are a great way to add visual interest and clarity to your website or app. But did you know that icons can also be a major accessibility barrier for people with visual impairments?
That’s because icons are often used to represent text or actions, and without alt text, screen readers can’t understand what they mean. This can make it difficult or impossible for people with visual impairments to use your website or app.
Alt text is a short description of an image that is displayed to screen readers. By adding alt text to your icons, you can ensure that people with visual impairments can still understand what they mean.
In addition to improving accessibility, alt text can also help improve your website’s SEO. When Google and other search engines crawl your website, they look at the alt text of your images to help understand the content of your pages. By using relevant and descriptive alt text, you can help Google better understand your pages and rank them higher in search results.
So how do you write effective alt text for icons
- Be descriptive: The alt text should accurately describe the icon and its purpose. Avoid using vague or generic terms like “image” or “graphic.”
- Be specific: The alt text should be as specific as possible. For example, instead of saying “heart icon,” you could say “red heart icon with a white outline.”
- Add context: The alt text should provide context about the icon’s surrounding content. For example, if the icon is next to a text link that says “Sign up,” the alt text could say “Sign up icon.”
- Keep it short: The alt text should be no more than 125 characters long.
These tips help you write effective alt text for icons that will improve accessibility and SEO for your website or app.
Conclusion
Adding alt tags to icons is a simple but effective way to improve accessibility and SEO for your website or app. By following the tips in this blog post, you can write effective alt text that will make your website more accessible to people with visual impairments and help you rank higher in search results.
Takeaways
- Alt text is a short description of an image that is displayed to screen readers.
- Adding alt text to icons can improve accessibility for people with visual impairments.
- Alt text can also help improve SEO by providing search engines with more information about the content of your pages.
- When writing alt text for icons, be descriptive, specific, and add context.
- Keep alt text short, no more than 125 characters.
