Alt Text for Images in Enhanced Content

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Article Contents:

• Overview
• What is Alt Text?
• Why Alt Text is Important
• Best Practices for Alt Text
• How to Input Alt Text in Syndigo
• Import Final Step: Republish Enhanced Content
• Need Help?

Overview

Alt text (short for “alternative text”) is a written description embedded in an image. Screen readers use alt text to describe images to visitors who are blind or have low vision, and many platforms use it to support accessibility and compliance requirements.

In Enhanced Content, alt text should be applied to every image.

What is Alt Text?

Alt text is a concise, accurate description of what an image shows and/or what purpose it serves. It is not visible to most shoppers, but it is stored with the image so assistive technologies can interpret the content.

Examples:

• “Front view of stainless-steel blender with 3 speed settings.”
• “Diagram showing installation steps for wall mount bracket.”

Alt text is one of the primary ways screen readers communicate visual information to visually impaired individuals. Without it, site visitors relying on assistive technology may miss critical product details, instructions, claims, or context conveyed through images.

Why Alt Text is Important

Adding alt text isn’t optional housekeeping - it’s an essential requirement for publishing compliant Enhanced Content. Alt text supports accessibility standards and is often necessary for compliance with laws and regulations. If any images live on a website are not accessible, the site owners may be exposed to compliance risk.  

As a result, all retailers require alt text on images as part of their content acceptance rules. Missing alt text for even one image may result in the removal of Brand-provided Enhanced Content on product details pages at any time.  

Best Practices for Alt Text

Use these guidelines to ensure your alt text is useful and compliant:

• Be specific and factual: Describe what the image actually shows.
• Keep it concise: Usually, one sentence is enough.
• Describe the purpose: If the image is instructional (e.g., a step-by-step graphic), reflect that.
• Skip redundant phrases: You typically don’t need “image of” or “picture of.”
• Decorative images: If an image is purely decorative and conveys no information, your organization may choose to leave it empty based on general accessibility guidance. However, retailers still require a value. Apply a generic text to avoid getting the asset flagged as non-compliant.  

How to Input Alt Text in Syndigo

Note: Image alt text only has to be inputted once per image file - for any given language, regardless of the interface or method. When alt text is add or modified, the image metadata will be universally updated wherever that asset is being utilized throughout all other Syndigo Enhanced Content Collections.

Image alt text can be applied in numerous places throughout the platform:

• The dedicated Image Alt Text field within the Widget Editor
• The Manage Asset Accessibility modal in the enhanced content building experience
• The AI Alt Text experience in the enhanced content building experience
• The Asset Details modal – available both within the widget building experience and the Asset library.
• Asset Metadata Spreadsheet export and reimport 

Method 1: Widget Editor: Image Alt Text Field 

This method allows you to manually add alt text to each image as you build Enhanced Content.

1. Navigate to the Widget editing experience for a widget that utilizes one or more image assets.  
2. For each image asset present, identify the text field, often located beneath the Description text field, titled Image Alt Text (2-digit language code)* – i.e. Image Alt Text (EN)*. The language is based on the language of the Enhanced Content Collection.
3. Enter the desired alt text based on language in this text field.
4. Select Update Widget to commit the alt text to the draft (unpublished) Enhanced Content.  
5. Once all alt text updates and modifications to Enhanced Content are complete, publish or republish the collection to reflect the latest updates.   

Method 2: Manage Asset Accessibility Modal 

This modal allows you to review, add, or edit alt text manually for an entire Collection in one place. 

1. Navigate to the Enhanced Content Collection editing experience for a collection that utilizes one or more image assets.  
2. In the actions menu, click the Manage Asset Accessibility button.  This will launch the Asset Accessibility modal.
   • The Images tab of this modal lists every image utilized in the Collection, with yellow warning indicators where alt text is missing or the already-committed alt text displayed by each.  
3. For each image where alt text is missing, enter the desired alt text value in the empty text box.  
4. For images with existing alt text, double-click the text to modify or edit if desired.  
5. Click the Save button when complete. 
   • The modal can be launched again at any time, to no limit, to review or add alt text at any time.  
6. Once all alt text updates and modifications to Enhanced Content are complete, publish or republish the collection to reflect the latest updates. 

Method 3: AI Alt Text Experience

Every time a new image file is uploaded to a Syndigo Enhanced Content account, AI analyzes the image to derive information for utilization in both the Layout Assistant and to propose suggested alt text values. The AI suggested alt text values can be reviewed and applied for an entire Collection in one place.  

1. Navigate to the Enhanced Content Collection editing experience.
2. Add image assets to existing or new widgets in the Collection.  
3. Click the AI Alt Text button when it becomes available. Recently added images may result in a processing indicator while the images are under AI evaluation.  
   • Syndigo’s AI Policy may appear in a modal when the button is selected. This means an account administrator must accept the AI Policy before any users on the account can access AI-generated text. This acceptance is required before using the AI Alt Text feature.
4. The Review AI Alt Text modal will launch.  
   • Every image missing alt text will be listed in this modal. If the AI successfully derived a suggested alt text value for an image, then the text is presented in the alt text field next to the image thumbnail.  
   • An error may be presented at the top of the modal that reads as follows: “Something went wrong and we couldn’t generate alt text for your images. Please enter alt text manually.”  
     • The most likely reason this message appears is that the image file was uploaded to Syndigo before the AI Alt Text feature launched. To allow the AI to process the image, re-upload it to Syndigo as a net-new asset, then return to the AI Alt Text experience.
     • If the same error appears after completing this troubleshooting step, the images may be triggering the AI’s content safety filters based on one or more indicators of potentially inappropriate content. If this occurs, alt text will need to be entered manually through one of the other methods covered in this article.
5. Review the suggested alt text values and add text to or modify any fields as desired.  
6. Once all alt text has been completed, click the Save button to commit the values.  
7. Continue adding additional image files in the Enhanced Content Collection and returning to the AI Alt Text experience as needed. There is no limit to how many times you can access the experience.
8. Once all alt text updates and modifications to Enhanced Content are complete, publish or republish the collection to reflect the latest updates.

Method 4: Asset Details Modal  

This modal allows you to review and add or modify alt text for one image asset at a time.  

To launch from the Widget Editor:  

1. Navigate to the Widget editing experience for a widget that utilizes one or more image assets.  
2. For each image asset present: Identify the View Asset Details button, located below the image asset preview thumbnail.  

To launch from the Assets Library:  

1. In the primary leftmost navigation pane in the platform, select Assets.
2. Search for and identify the desired image asset file in the Assets Library.  
3. Click the file name of the image asset in the index.  
   • The Asset Details modal will launch. Navigate to the Accessibility tab in this modal.  
   • All existing alt text, if applied previously, is presented within the modal.  
4. Existing alt text within the text fields may be modified and committed.  
5. To add alt text for the first time or add alt text for additional languages, click the Add Alt Text button.
   • The interface will present an empty text field for the Image Alt Text paired with a dropdown selector for the associated Language.
6. Enter the Image Alt Text and select the correct language from the Language dropdown. Repeat these steps until all desired languages have been supplied.  
7. To commit the changes, click the Save button.  
8. Once all alt text updates and modifications to Enhanced Content are complete, publish or republish the collection to reflect the latest updates.

Method 5: Asset Metadata Spreadsheet – Export and Import

This method is best for adding alt text in bulk. Export the spreadsheet, enter the desired alt text values, and then reimport it. You can use this process for one language or multiple languages at the same time.  

Pair this method with the Enhanced Content Image Asset Alt Text report to apply AI-suggested alt text values at scale instead of one collection at a time.  

1. In the primary leftmost navigation pane in the platform, select Assets. This will navigate to the Syndigo Assets library.  
2. Utilize the filters available to filter down to only the image files of interest, i.e., Format: jpeg.  
   • Note: For accounts with a large number of image files, we recommend grouping images into logical sets that each reference fewer than 1,000 images total before exporting. Asset Folders are a great way to group image files together. This helps keep the export spreadsheet manageable.
3. Once the index is filtered down to the relevant image files, ensure that the desired alt text language is associated with one of the image assets that will be exported.  
   1. Click the file name of one of the image assets displayed in the index. This will launch the Asset Details modal.  
   2. Navigate to the Accessibility tab in this modal.
   3. Click the Add Alt Text button.  
   4. Enter any value in the alt text field and in the Language dropdown, select the desired language. Repeat these steps to add all additional languages to be included in the export.  
   5. Click Save to commit the alt text additions and dismiss the modal.  
4. After returning to the Assets library index, click Select All by the count of assets at the top of the interface.  
5. In the Actions menu, click Export.  
6. Choose Asset Metadata Template in the export modal.  
7. Click Export.  
8. An email will be sent when the export is ready. Download the spreadsheet using the link included in the email.  
9. Open the spreadsheet file. Every row of this spreadsheet represents one distinct asset file that was selected for the export.  
   • Reference the Name column to assist with identifying the images by file name.  
   • To view any image, navigate to the URL provided in the URL column in your web browser.
10. Navigate across the columns to identify where the Alt Text columns begin. Each language will be represented in its own column, and the name of the column will be Alt Text – (Language) i.e., Alt Text- English, Alt Text – French, etc.  
11. Enter the desired alt text for each image asset listed in the spreadsheet and reimport to the Assets library (via the Import Metadata button).  
12. Once all alt text updates and modifications to Enhanced Content are complete, publish or republish the collection to reflect the latest updates. 

Tip: To quickly input the AI-suggested alt text values into this spreadsheet, export the custom insights report Enhanced Content Image Asset Alt Text from Report Builder. This report lists all image assets utilized within any Enhanced Content Collections paired with AI-suggested alt text values, if they are available.  

Utilizing your preferred spreadsheet management application, match the records between the two exports – the Asset Metadata spreadsheet and the Enhanced Content Image Asset Alt Text report – on the Asset IDs. The AI-suggested alt text values can be populated through a LOOKUP or similar function across many rows at once.  

Import Final Step: Republish Enhanced Content

If alt text has been applied after a collection has been published, even if the collection is still under review by Syndigo Quality Assurance, the collection must be republished to ensure the latest alt text values are captured.  

• If the collection is currently under review (“In Review” status), please cancel the review and then republish it once all the desired alt text has been applied.
• If the collection is live already, please republish it once all the desired alt text has been applied.  

In the near future, retailers will require alt text before any Enhanced Content can go live on their sites, so establish internal processes and expectations now to avoid delays in your eCommerce timelines.

Need Help?

If you’re unsure what your retailers require or how to standardize alt text across your Enhanced Content program, reach out to your account representative for guidance and best practice recommendations.