Diagram Center

The Diagram Center offers a comprehensive set of image description guidelines to assist users writing alternative text.

We encourage all users needing insight into alternative text to visit the Diagram Center. They provide an incredibly helpful set of guidelines and are a wealth of information for accessibility beginners and experts alike.

The Diagram Center's Image Description Guidelines are split into two sections: one general, and one oriented around the types of images you are using.

General Image Description Guidelines provide insight into style and language, as well as formatting considerations.

Specific Image Description Guidelines are especially helpful for people who already know about alternative text and need further guidance:

1. Art, Photos & Cartoons (Drawings, Paintings, Photographs, Cartoons, Comics)
2. Chemistry (Chemical Element)
3. Diagrams: Illustrated (Simple, Complex, or Comparative)
4. Diagrams: Relational (Venn, Radial/Web, and Hierarchy/Tree Diagrams, Flow Charts, Cycles)
5. Graphs (Bar, Line, and Pie Graphs, Scatter Plots)
6. Maps (Geographic, Political)
7. Mathematics (Graphs, Math Diagrams, Geometry, Equations & Expressions)
8. Tables (Simple, Complex)
9. Text Only Images (Nutrition Labels, Timelines)

They also provide a Word version of their guidelines: Download Diagram Center's Image Description Guidelines (Word DOCX)

This page was last updated on: April 1, 2020.