Images – Student Affairs Template

Images and Accessibility

Images are a powerful way to enhance content, but using them correctly is essential to ensure your website remains accessible to everyone.

Best Practices for Images:

Use images that support your content and are visually clear—avoid busy images with excessive text, such as posters or flyers, as these are not accessible.
Provide alt text for every image. Alt text should be concise, descriptive, and contextual to the content it accompanies.
Follow recommended image dimensions to maintain consistent layout and page performance.
Infographics should be simplified, clear, and supported with descriptive alt text or accompanying text summaries.

Animated or Motion Elements:

Avoid unnecessary motion, flashing, or autoplay animations, as these can create accessibility barriers for some users.
Only use motion when it enhances comprehension and provide controls to pause or stop animations if needed.

When in Doubt:

Complex workflows, organizational charts, or images with a lot of embedded information can be tricky to make accessible. The web team or the Digital Accessibility Team can provide guidance to ensure all content meets accessibility standards.

By following these best practices, your images will not only look great but also ensure your content is accessible to all visitors.

Recommended Image Dimensions

For the best website performance and visual quality, save images as JPEG files whenever possible and use the lowest quality setting that still looks clean and sharp. A resolution of 72 DPI is recommended for web use. Following the recommended aspect ratios and pixel dimensions listed below for each image type will help ensure images display consistently and correctly throughout the website theme.

Carousel image sample 800 pixels x 600 pixels