Web Dev tidbits

[Craig Biles]

Happy Friday. Hope the start of the semester is treating you well. Here are a couple of things that have crossed my desk that I thought you might be interested in.

Alt Text Tips

I was reading an email on SEO myths and one of them was that stuffing a bunch of keywords into an Alt Text is bad practice and a waste of time. It is bad practice because the main reason for Alt Text is for someone who can't see the image and is using a screen reader. If the screen reader gets to the image and it announces, "UNCG - Spartans - Social Mobility" it does nothing to describe the image. It is a waste of time because, while Google does "read" the Alt Text to help index the image, it is such a low ranking factor that it won't help us move up in the search results.

I'm still a proponent of including some descriptors that help the reader and may also be counted as a keyword. For example, "Intramural volleyball game at UNC Greensboro" instead of "Volleyball players".

The bottom line of the article wrapped up with these tips for Alt Text:

• Don't stuff with keywords. Describe what is in the photo to someone who cannot see it.
• Don’t say “image of” or “photo of” in your alt text. Be short but descriptive.
• Finally, add a “period” at the end as a prompt for screen readers to know the alt text has completed.

Accessibility Training

Another web guy shared with me that on November 2-3 there is a WordPress Accessibility Day. https://wpaccessibility.day/ It is a free 24-hour virtual conference focused on building accessible websites in WordPress. They are building their speaker list now but if this interests you then you can sign up for their email list. In case you're not aware, there is some non-WordPress accessibility training available at UNCG at the website https://accessibility.uncg.edu.

Next Meeting

Presently we plan to meet next week for our monthly Web Dev meeting. If you have suggestions for topics let me know. I'll send out an invite soon.

I hope this is helpful. Always reach out if you have questions. Have a great weekend.

M. Craig Biles

University Digital Design and

Mobile Communications Developer

Information Technology Services and

University Communications Depts.

uc.uncg.edu

its.uncg.edu

mcb...@uncg.edu