Accessibility Alert: Alt Text Shortage!

By GIC Published on July 17th, 2025

Last updated on July 17th, 2025

Today we’re sounding the alarm:

We need your help to meet the pending accessibility deadline!

A cartoon showing the Delaware-shaped character called Delly wearing a construction helmet and holding a bullhorn. He is standing in front of a lighthouse, a construction barrier, and a heavy vehicle on sandy, unpaved terrain.

The Challenge at Hand

A quick reminder: April 24, 2026 is the deadline for public entities to comply with the new digital accessibility requirements under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. That means that by that date, anything that any government or civic organization has posted online must be accessible to people with disabilities to the WCAG 2.1 AA standard.

The GIC is working behind the scenes to upgrade coded accessibility issues, but we are asking agencies to begin taking their own proactive steps to reach deadline compliance.

We will be offering a series of solutions in this blog, and we begin with an important one: Alt Text.

Why Alt Text Matters

Accessibility compliance requires that every image on a website has alt text entered, so screen reading software can describe the images to those who have visual challenges. Unfortunately, there are many state government websites whose images include no alt text at all. It’s one of the biggest single accessibility issues that agencies can address on their own.

It’s worth pointing out that the Lighthouse system does not permit the publishing of any page or post in which the alt text has not been entered. This is a standard that web editors can expect to encounter moving forward.

A screenshot showing that the alternative text field has been filled in with a description

Aerial view of a crowded beach with colorful umbrellas, people relaxing on sand and swimming in the ocean, waves crashing onto the shore, vibrant and lively.

Our Request

We are asking agencies to begin reviewing their own site images immediately to make sure the alt text is entered in both the imagery as well as in the WordPress media library.

How to Enter Alt Text

Writer’s Block

Entering alt text can actually stop good writers in their tracks. Describing an image to someone who can’t see it can be trickier than it would seem, because it’s something most people don’t often do. Some images are quite straightforward to describe, but others may be abstract stock images, intended more as a decoration than something to be thought of in its literal context. That unexpected struggle can scare people away from even trying. But it’s time to try again, and we’re going to help!

Here are some tips from Harvard’s Digital Accessibility project:

Keep it short, usually 1-2 sentences. Don’t overthink it.
Consider key elements of why you chose this image, instead of describing every little detail.
No need to say “image of” or “picture of.”
But, do say if it’s a logo, illustration, painting, or cartoon.
Don’t duplicate text that’s adjacent in the document or website.
End the alt text sentence with a period.

Ideally, your alt text should fall below the 125 character mark to comply with the greatest number of screen readers.

But My Site Has SOOOOO Many Images

Unfortunately, that’s all the more reason your site is at risk for being flagged for accessibility violations if you are missing alt text.

The best advice we can give on that front is to divide and conquer. Take the number of total web pages your site has and divide it by the number of months we have before the 4/24/26 deadline. (About 9 as of this blog post!) That’s your monthly must-review-pages list. Try to enlist other web contributors, if possible, to exceed that pace.

We can’t enter your alt text for you, but if you need advice on how best to attack your own website, we’re always here for you at the GIC.

If you have further questions about accessibility, please reach out to the Delaware Development Disabilities Council.