Lesson 5 of 7 · about 11 minutes
Captions, Credits and Alt Text
You'll be able to
- Write a caption that adds who, what, where and when without repeating the obvious
- Format a credit line for your own photos, licensed images, records and AI illustrations
- Write alt text that gives a screen reader user the same information a sighted reader gets
- Tell when an image should have empty alt text
Three short pieces of text go with every image. The caption tells readers what they are looking at. The credit says who made it. The alt text carries the image to people who cannot see it. Each takes a minute to write and each one fails in predictable ways.
Captions: say what the picture cannot
A picture shows what something looks like. It cannot say who, when, where, how many or why. The caption fills those gaps.
A solid news caption usually answers:
- Who is in it, by name and role, when they are identifiable and relevant.
- What is happening, in present tense for the action.
- Where, specifically.
- When, at least the day.
- Why it matters, in a few words connecting it to the story.
Do not describe what everyone can already see. "A man stands at a podium" wastes the line. "Planning director Luis Ortega presents the revised warehouse site plan to the Elm Falls planning commission Monday" earns it.
Example: caption rewrites
Bad: Residents at the meeting.
Bad: Concerned citizens voiced their concerns at a heated meeting. (Vague, repetitive and loaded with an adjective you cannot prove.)
Good: About 60 residents filled the Elm Falls council chambers Tuesday night. Most of the 22 speakers opposed the proposed 18 percent water rate increase.
Bad: The road.
Good: A section of Ridge Road guardrail near mile marker 7, photographed Oct. 2, has been flattened since at least June, according to county maintenance logs.
Bad: Document.
Good: Page 3 of the March 3 change order raises the paving contract total to $412,600, up from the $298,000 bid.
Keep captions factual. Your opinion belongs in the article, if the article is an opinion piece. In a caption, adjectives like "heated," "outrageous" or "packed" invite argument. Give the number instead and let the reader decide whether 60 people is packed.
Check every name in a caption against a second source. Misidentifying someone in a photo is one of the most common corrections in journalism, and one of the most embarrassing.
Credits: who made it, under what terms
The credit line usually sits just below the caption, in smaller type. Keep the format consistent across your site.
| Image source | Credit line |
|---|---|
| You took it | Photo: Dana Reyes |
| Someone gave permission | Photo: Marcus Hale, used with permission |
| Creative Commons | "Grain Elevator at Dusk" by R. Okafor, CC BY 4.0 (title and license linked) |
| Federal government work | Photo: U.S. Forest Service |
| Public record | Source: Elm Falls Public Works Department, obtained through a public records request |
| Screenshot | Screenshot of the Elm Falls city website, captured Oct. 4, 2026 |
| AI illustration | AI-generated illustration |
| Your own chart | Chart: Dana Reyes. Data: Elm Falls adopted budgets, FY2022 to FY2026 |
For CC licenses, the credit is a condition of the license. Skip it and you are outside the license. The previous lesson covers the title, author, source and license format.
Credit lines also tell readers how you got the image. "Obtained through a public records request" quietly says you did the work. Readers notice.
Alt text: the image for people who cannot see it
Alt text lives in the page code (the alt attribute on an image). Screen readers read it aloud. It also shows when the image fails to load, which happens more than you would think on slow rural connections.
Most blogging and newsletter platforms have an alt text field when you insert an image. Use it every time.
The W3C's images tutorial sorts images into groups, and each gets different treatment:
- Informative images (a photo or simple graphic that adds meaning) get a short description of the meaning.
- Decorative images (a divider line, a background texture) get empty alt, written
alt="", so screen readers skip them. Leaving the attribute off is different and worse: some screen readers then read the file name. - Functional images (an icon inside a link or button) get alt that describes the action or destination, such as "Download the full report," not "arrow icon."
- Complex images (charts, detailed maps) get short alt plus the full information somewhere on the page, in text or a table.
Some rules that hold up:
- Do not start with "Image of" or "Photo of." Screen readers already announce that it is an image.
- Usually one or two sentences. Long enough to carry the meaning, short enough to listen to.
- Do not stuff keywords for search engines. People hear that.
- Do not repeat the caption word for word. If the caption already covers everything, the alt text can describe the visual part the caption skips.
- Include text that appears in the image if it matters. A photo of a sign that reads "LIBRARY CLOSED SUNDAYS" should put those words in the alt text.
Example: alt text
Image: cropped invoice showing a total.
Bad: invoice_final_v2.jpg
Bad: Image of a document
Good: Granite Paving invoice to the city of Elm Falls, dated March 3, with a total due of $412,600.
Image: bar chart of library spending over five years.
Bad: Chart
Good: Bar chart: Elm Falls library spending fell each year from $1.2 million in 2022 to $870,000 in 2026. Full figures in the table below.
Image: AI illustration of a water tower with a rising arrow, used as a header.
Good: Illustration of a water tower with an upward arrow beside it.
Order of work
Write the caption first, since it forces you to know the facts. Then the credit. Then the alt text, read out loud. If hearing it would leave a listener knowing what a viewer knows, it is done.
Try it
- Take three photos from the phone exercise in lesson 2 (a document, a scene and anything else).
- Write a caption, a credit line and alt text for each. Invent a plausible story and town for context.
- Read each alt text aloud with your eyes closed. Does it give you what the picture gives you?
- Find one image on a news site you read and rewrite its caption to add a number, a place or a time it is missing.
Checklist
- Caption answers who, what, where and when, and why it matters.
- Caption has no adjectives you cannot prove.
- Every name is checked against a second source.
- Credit line follows the site's format and names the license where there is one.
- Alt text carries the reason the image is in the story.
- Decorative images have empty alt, not missing alt.
- Charts and dense maps have their data in text or a table on the page.
Current: In the News
News coverage
- "Extension of Compliance Dates for Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities", Federal Register (U.S. Department of Justice), April 20, 2026. Pushes the web accessibility deadlines for state and local governments, alt text included, to April 2027 for large entities and April 2028 for small ones.
External resources
- "The WebAIM Million: The 2026 report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages", WebAIM, March 30, 2026. 2026 data on how often images on the most visited home pages still lack alt text, and which kinds of images are the worst offenders.
- "Informative Images", W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. Worked examples of short alt text for photos and images that carry meaning, the kind most news pages use.
Check yourself
1. Which caption is strongest for a photo of residents at a meeting?
It gives a number, a place, a time and the reason they came. The reader learns things the picture alone cannot say.
2. What is alt text mainly for?
Screen readers read alt text aloud. It should carry the image's meaning to someone who cannot see it.
3. A purely decorative divider graphic should have what alt text, according to the W3C images tutorial?
Empty alt tells screen readers to skip the image. Leaving the attribute off entirely can make some read out the file name.
4. For a bar chart showing five years of library spending, where should the full numbers go?
W3C guidance for complex images is to put the detailed information elsewhere on the page and keep alt brief.
5. Which credit line is correct for a photo you took yourself?
Crediting your own work tells readers who made it and that it is original reporting.
6. Which alt text is best for a cropped photo of an invoice showing a total of $412,600?
It names the document and gives the number that matters, which is why the image is in the story.
Terms in this lesson
- Caption
- Visible text under an image that explains what it shows and adds context.
- Credit line
- A short line naming who made the image or where it came from, and under what terms.
- Alt text
- Text attached to an image in the page code that screen readers read aloud and that shows if the image fails to load.
- Screen reader
- Software that reads a page aloud for blind and low-vision users.
- Empty alt
- An alt attribute with nothing in it, alt="", telling assistive technology to skip a decorative image.
Sources
- W3C WAI Images Tutorial: An alt Decision Tree checked 2026-10
- Creative Commons, Recommended practices for attribution checked 2026-10