A season of photos, every one described.
Alt text is a short written description of a photo, stored with it rather than shown on top of it. Screen reading software reads it aloud, so somebody who cannot see the picture still gets what it shows. Every major platform has a field for it. Keeping up with that field, on every photo, all season, is the hard part.
What a good description actually says.
Useful whatever you write them with. A description is doing its job when somebody who cannot see the photo could describe it back to you.
Say what is happening
The action is the point of the photo. A runner breaking the tape tells a different story from a runner warming up, and a description that says only "a track athlete" throws that away.
Name who it is, when you know
A name and a number turn a generic photo into a record of a specific person on a specific day. It is also what makes an archive searchable years later.
Keep it short
A sentence or two. Screen readers announce the whole thing before moving on, so a paragraph is worse than a line, not better.
Skip the throat clearing
No "image of" or "photo of" at the start. The software already announces that it is an image, so those words are two seconds of nothing before the part that matters.
Leave out what a caption already says
If the post text already gives the final score, the description does not need to repeat it. Say what the picture shows that the words do not.
It is not that nobody cares.
Descriptions get skipped in programs where everybody agrees they matter. The reason is where the task lands in the day, not what anyone thinks of it.
It lands at the worst moment
Descriptions get written at the end, on a phone, on a bus, minutes after a game ended. That is the point in the day with the least attention available for it.
Volume beats good intentions
A department publishing 20,000 photos a year is looking at roughly 167 hours of typing, or about 4 full working weeks, at thirty seconds a photo. Nobody has that, so it becomes the thing that gets dropped when the week gets busy.
Every platform is its own errand
The same photo goes to Facebook, Instagram and X, each with its own box in its own place. Doing it three times is three chances to skip it.
It gets uneven
Different people write differently, and the same person writes differently in October than in May. What you end up with is a mix of careful descriptions, rushed ones, and blanks.
Nobody types them.
Every photo you publish through atTeam goes out with a written description of what is in it, on Facebook, Instagram, and X alike. The description is stored with the post, so you can look back at what went out and when instead of reconstructing it later.
Questions, answered.
What is alt text?
Alt text is a short written description of a photo, stored alongside the photo rather than shown on top of it. Screen reading software reads it aloud, so somebody who cannot see the picture still gets what it shows. Every major social platform has a field for it.
What should alt text on a game photo say?
Say what is happening, name who it is when you know, and stop. One or two sentences. Skip openers like "image of", since the software already says it is an image, and skip anything the caption already covers. A description that says only "a track athlete" throws away the reason somebody took the photo.
How long should alt text be?
A sentence or two. A screen reader announces the whole description before moving on, so a long one is worse than a short one, not more thorough.
How much alt text does an athletic department write in a year?
A busy department publishes around 20,000 photos a year. At thirty seconds to look at a photo and write a usable description, that is roughly 167 hours, or about 4 full working weeks of somebody's time. Publish more than that, or write slower than that, and the number goes up.
Why does alt text get skipped even when people mean to do it?
It is the last step before posting, and posting happens minutes after a game ends, usually on a phone. The same photo also goes to three platforms, each with its own field in its own place, so it is three chances to skip it rather than one. It is not that people do not care, it is where the task lands in the day.
Can alt text be added on Facebook, Instagram, and X?
Yes. All three let you attach a description to a photo, each in its own place in its own posting flow. Doing it by hand means finding that field three times for the same picture.
Does atTeam write alt text automatically?
Yes. Every photo you publish through atTeam goes out with a written description of what is in it, on Facebook, Instagram, and X alike, without anyone on your staff typing one. The description is stored with the post, so you can look back at what went out and when.