SPLASH ACCESS™ ALT TEXT
- Splash Box Marketing, LLC
- Apr 10
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 14
THE SOFTWARE THAT TURNS PDF IMAGES INTO WCAG-READY DESCRIPTIONS
By Splash Box® Marketing
THE PROBLEM ISN’T “ALT TEXT” – IT’S VOLUME
In the healthcare and government sectors, PDFs are the default format for high-stakes communication: member materials, notices, provider directories, reports, forms, and more.
Inside each and every single one of those PDFs are thousands of individual images, like logos, icons, charts, screenshots, photos, and more. And each of these needs a decision made:
Is the image decorative or informative?
If it’s informative, what’s the right description?
If it’s complex, what’s the best “short alt + longer nearby text” approach?
Most teams don’t fail because they don’t care. They fail because alt text doesn’t scale when you’re doing it manually.
ALT TEXT ISN’T HARD ONCE. IT’S HARD A THOUSAND TIMES. |
MEET SPLASH ACCESS™ ALT TEXT: BUILT FOR THE REAL WORKFLOW
Splash Box® Marketing’s solution: Splash Access™ Alt Text. This program is a subscription-based software that’s designed to help you craft alt text on a scalable level. How it works:
Extracts images from PDFs.
Generates WCAG 2.2–level alternative text.
Helps your team apply consistent, high-quality descriptions faster.
Splash Access™ Alt Text is designed for the moment when accessibility becomes menial and time-consuming. When you have decision fatigue after writing yet another sentence of alt text. When you just can’t figure out another way to explain what you’re seeing on the page. All the image-by-image decisions that take context, judgment, and consistency are solved with Splash Access™ Alt Text.
WHY IT MATTERS
When you’re first starting to improve accessibility, alt text is one of the best places to begin. That’s because its accessibility improvements are so varied. Implementing alt text helps:
Screen reader access, giving a non-visual understanding.
Cognitive clarity, by providing plain-language descriptions.
Quality control, by ensuring consistency across large document sets.
For organizations that publish at scale, the return on investment is simple: fewer bottlenecks, fewer rework cycles, and fewer “we’ll fix it later” compromises.
WHEN IMAGES ARE ACCESSIBLE, THE DOCUMENT BECOMES USABLE—NOT JUST TECHNICALLY COMPLIANT. |
Good alt text isn’t just a caption. Instead, it’s a functional description that matches the reader’s goal: understanding what’s on the page. That’s why Splash Access™ Alt Text is built around a few core rules. First, describe purpose not pixels. What does the image do for the reader? What’s the story the image is telling? Second, be concise and use plain language. Most alt text should be one sentence. Avoid long paragraphs and jargon that may be unnecessarily confusing. Third, mark decorative images as decorative. Not every image needs alt text. Skip alt text for any image that doesn’t convey meaning. And last, handle complex visuals with a two-part approach. Combine short alt text with longer and nearby text or a table when needed.
THE REAL-WORLD IMAGE TYPES (AND HOW THE SOFTWARE HELPS)
Not all images serve the same purpose, and effective alt text starts with understanding and recognizing those differences. Decorative images, like dividers, flourishes, and background shapes, exist only for visual design. These should be marked as decorative, so that screen readers skip them, avoiding unnecessary noise. Informative icons, like phone or location symbols, communicate meaning. Their alt text should reflect that meaning in its context. Instead of labeling an icon simply as “phone,” a more useful description would be “Call Member Services at 800-555-0123.”
Similarly, photos should also be described selectively. If they’re purely aesthetic and used solely as a background, mark them as decorative. If they support the message of the piece, then describe only what matters. For example, “Nurse speaking with a patient in a clinic exam room” provides the context needed without over explaining what people are wearing or what tools and tests might be present. A sub-category of photos is the screenshot. These are typically task-oriented. Alt text should identify what the screenshot shows, while step-by-step instructions should be provided in surrounding tables or text. For instance, “Screenshot of the ‘Claims’ page showing the ‘Download EOB’ button” helps orient the user without duplicating content.
Charts and infographics tend to be a little more complicated because they usually require more text to explain their meaning. It’s not enough to simply say “Bar chart.” Instead, we have to explain what the bar chart says. A better example of alt text would be, “Bar chart comparing average wait times by region,” while nearby text or tables communicate the key values and takeaways.
Suffice it to say, there are numerous best practices to keep in mind while writing alt text. We created Splash Access™ Alt Text to help you manage these best practices, write and scale alt text, and manage a streamlined workflow. All you have to do is upload your remediated PDFs, generate draft alt text, then review and refine it. Human review is the critical step to ensure quality, where your team gets to decide what matters most to your documents.
QUALITY GUARDRAILS: WHAT TEAMS SHOULD STANDARDIZE
Consistency requires clear standards. If you’re just beginning your accessibility journey and trying to implement alt text for the first time, make sure your team is aligned on terminology. For example, decide whether you'll use “member” or “enrollee.” Utilize plain, neutral language, and have a plan for how you write dates, phone numbers, acronyms, addresses, and hours of operation. You should also set rules for logos and repeated icons, which helps you avoid redundant descriptions. These guardrails keep your alt text consistent and meaningful across multiple teams and vendors.
THE DEFINITION OF DONE
Alt text is complete when all images are correctly classified, and informative visuals include concise, accurate, and context-aware descriptions in plain language. Complex visuals should include a clear text equivalent nearby. Alt text should not repeat visible text unnecessarily or rely on placeholders like file names. It’s helpful to check your images with a screen reader to ensure a smooth, uncluttered experience.
Alt text is critical, yet easy to fall behind on. For teams moving quickly with large amounts of documents, maintaining quality at scale is a significant hurdle to overcome. If this is sounds familiar, we built Splash Access™ Alt Text for you. It creates clear, consistent, and WCAG-ready descriptions without slowing down your document pipeline. ●
