Showing File Names acting as Alt Text on your website

Hello all, I'd appreciate some help with Squarespace 7.1.

I've created sections which are images on my website, only to discover that I'm unable to put alt-text on them. On digging around on Squarespace support, the attached tells me that file names can be utilised as alt text. My question is, how can you get file names on images to be visible on your website? I don't seem to be able to see the file names. Am I missing something? 

Help gratefully received! 

On 2/2/2023 at 11:21 AM, crak said:

I've created sections which are images on my website, only to discover that I'm unable to put alt-text on them. On digging around on Squarespace support, the attached tells me that file names can be utilised as alt text.

Please raise this as a feature request directly with Squarespace Customer Care. The advice in that support article is incorrect. 🤔

Squarespace does not add alt text to section backgrounds (see below):

In most cases this is not surprising because, for accessibility reasons, it is not ideal to use background images "as the sole method of conveying important information". There isn't currently a feature that adds the filename as alt text when section backgrounds do require it. 

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On 2/2/2023 at 1:08 PM, paul2009 said:

Please raise this directly with Squarespace Customer Care, as I'm not sure the advice in that support article is correct. 🤔

In my experience, Squarespace does not add alt text to section backgrounds (see below):

In most cases this is not surprising because, for accessibility reasons, it is not ideal to use background images "as the sole method of conveying important information" (WCAG F3). However, I'm not aware of a functioning feature that adds the filename as alt text when section backgrounds do require it.

If Customer Care tell you anything different, please share what they tell you 🙂

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Hi Paul,

I came across the same issue of wanting to add an alt text to a background image that I'm using above the fold and not being able to find a way to do so. It struck me that you said that using background images is not ideal for accessibility, and I'm wondering if you could say a bit more about that? It's important to me to learn how to make my site as accessible as possible. What would you recommend I do instead? I would like for the image to be immersive when landing on my site, which is why I chose the background image option.

Thank you!

On 9/13/2023 at 9:55 AM, Aurora said:

I came across the same issue of wanting to add an alt text to a background image that I'm using above the fold and not being able to find a way to do so. It struck me that you said that using background images is not ideal for accessibility, and I'm wondering if you could say a bit more about that?

I'm not an expert on accessibility but my best advice is to try to avoid presenting important information in a background image.

If the content of the image is important to convey your message then I recommend placing it in an Image Block, where you can add descriptive alternate ("alt") text to make the image content accessible to everyone.

Personally, I'd like to include alternate text on all images - even "ambient" images - as a courtesy to screen reader users. They may have disabled background images to increase the contrast of the text but many would still like to know about the background image. Unfortunately, this isn't currently possible for background images on Squarespace - at least not without writing some custom JavaScript.

Note that the support article mentioned above (suggesting the filename can be used) is incorrect, and is on the waitlist to be corrected.

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1 hour ago, paul2009 said:

I'm not an expert on accessibility but my best advice is to try to avoid presenting important information in a background image.

If the content of the image is important to convey your message then I recommend placing it in an Image Block, where you can add descriptive alternate ("alt") text to make the image content accessible to everyone.

Personally, I'd like to include alternate text on all images - even "ambient" images - as a courtesy to screen reader users. They may have disabled background images to increase the contrast of the text but many would still like to know about the background image. Unfortunately, this isn't currently possible for background images on Squarespace - at least not without writing some custom JavaScript.

Note that the support article mentioned above (suggesting the filename can be used) is incorrect, and is on the waitlist to be corrected.

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Thanks! I appreciate your thoughts. I agree, I want my readers to be able to perceive all images on my site. On the other hand, I really like the immersive look of a background image that covers the whole screen width, especially above the fold.

I contacted Squarespace about this issue and was told by two agents that a screen reader would read out the file name for a background image. Can you confirm that this is incorrect?