Certificate in Online Education

Some users may turn off downloading images in their web browser to save on bandwidth costs. Others may be using a browser on their mobile phone which reduces the size and quality of the images. Other users may have visual impairments which make difficult for them to see the images clearly.

In all these cases you'll want to ensure your students don't lose out in their understanding of your course content. For example, you may use an image of a graph to demonstrate a particular point. If some of your students can't see the graph, they may not appreciate the point you are trying to make.

For this reason, it is best practise to give your image a title and alternative text (or alt text). The alt text is the text that will appear if your image isn't displayed. The alt text will also appear when the user hovers the mouse over the image.

Image displayed, with the alt text: "Pie chart showing distribution of football team support"	Image not displayed and with no alternative text	Image not displayed, with the alt text: "Pie chart showing distribution of football team support"

By adding alternative text, users who aren't able to see the image know what the image is intended to show. With no alt text (as shown in the middle of the table above) users will have no idea what the image is meant to be showing them.

Fortunately, Moodle will always prompt you to add alternative text whenever you try to insert an image into your course, but it's worth understanding why this is necessary and how it can help to make your course accessible to all your students.