Short version: probably yes.
Recently I was working with a team on a page that’s a listing of people who are professional service providers. Each provider has a head shot photo. So, naturally, we were discussing if those photos needed to have text alternatives.
In general
- WCAG Success Criteria 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A) says that all non-text content must have a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose.
- It also says that decorative images must be hidden from assistive technology.
- Photos are very rarely decoration. Their purpose is to convey visual information, so they must have a text alternative.
- Writing good text alternatives can be tricky! That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and do it. If an image conveys information we must supply a text alternative.
- Usability testing suggests that screen reader users prefer photos to have a text alternative. They want an equivalent experience.
In this specific case
- Marking these images as decorative would imply that they don’t have a purpose. If that were true, we would remove the images.
- Writing a generic text alternative (for example: “Headshot of [service provider’s name]”) does not convey the same information as the photo.
- We want to consider including things like ethnicity and gender because these may be important to the customer, in particular customers who belong to marginalised groups.
- We don’t want to make assumptions, so we should ask the person in the photo about the text alternative. This is most efficiently done at the same time as taking the photo.