Complex Images

What is a Complex Image?

Complex images are images that have too much information to properly express their purpose with alt text alone.

Examples of complex image include (this is not an exhaustive list):

• Flyers or images of text that exceeds 200 characters of embedded text
• Data tables
• Pie charts
• Line graphs

Why are Complex Images Inaccessible?

• The content within a complex images is not interactive for a screen readers and only the alt text is read back to the user
• Alt text cannot properly describe the structural information embedded within the image
• A screen reader user cannot pause their progress when reading alt text
  • If they stop reading and return to the image, the entire alt text entry is read again
• Complex images often have color contrast problems

Example Complex Image

These two tables were pasted into this document as an image instead of recreating them as tables in the Word document. In this case, the tables should be created in Word rather than pasting them in as an image. Also note that the image content is blurry and hard to read.

How do I Include Complex Images in an Accessible Way?

• Ensure that images complement the main content on your page and are NOT the main content
• Provide succinct alt text description that provides context for the images purpose
• For charts and graphs, provide a textual summary on the page that will help all users understand facts or figures present in the data analysis