Accessible Social Media Training Recap

Alt text on images is a hard legal requirement under WCAG 2.1 AA, which is the standard established by the DOJ Title II final rule. It is not optional. Every image you post on social media—photos, graphics, charts, event posters, infographics—must have descriptive alt text. Leaving the alt text field blank, or skipping it entirely, means a screen reader user either hears the raw file name of the image or hears "image, no description," both of which are inaccessible experiences. Alt text is one of the few things in this training that is a non-negotiable requirement.

No. The DOJ Title II ruling applies only to posts created after the compliance deadline, which has been extended to April 26, 2027. You are not legally required to retroactively add alt text or captions to posts published before that date. That said, if you have high-traffic posts that are particularly important to your audience, going back to add alt text to those as practice is a reasonable thing to do. It is a great way to build the habit before the deadline arrives. But retroactive remediation of all historical social media content is not a requirement.

Emoji placement is a best practice recommendation, not a hard WCAG requirement. Moving emojis to the end of your post improves the screen reader experience because it lets the main message read cleanly before the emoji names get announced. However, there is no WCAG success criterion that explicitly mandates emoji placement. The same is true of hashtag placement and the avoidance of ASCII art—these are usability recommendations that meaningfully improve the experience for screen reader users, but they are not the same category of requirement as alt text or captions. The goal is to minimize disruption to the flow of your content. Using one or two emojis inline is generally fine; peppering them throughout every sentence is where it becomes a burden for screen reader users.

Yes. Instagram allows you to add alt text to each individual image in a carousel (multi-image post) on desktop. When creating the post in the desktop browser, after selecting all your images and advancing through the filters step, the accessibility options appear for each image in sequence and you can write alt text for each one. On mobile, the More Options > Accessibility path also supports carousel images. Each image in the carousel needs its own alt text describing what that specific image shows.

Yes, in testing, alt text added to an Instagram post before publishing does carry over when the post is simultaneously shared to Facebook through the connected accounts feature. Meta has confirmed that accessibility text may also appear in captions in some contexts. That said, you should verify the alt text reached the Facebook post after publishing, since platform behavior can change. Check the published Facebook post by right-clicking the image and selecting Edit to confirm the alt text is present. Do not assume the cross-post carried everything through without verifying.

Video on social media has two distinct accessibility requirements under WCAG 2.1 AA. The first is captions, which serve users who cannot hear the spoken audio. Captions must be accurate to a 99% standard—auto-generated captions are a starting point that must be reviewed and corrected. The second is audio description (also called video description), which serves users who cannot see the video. Audio description conveys the meaningful visual information that is not communicated by the spoken audio track. Until dedicated audio description tools are available at TTU, the recommended approach is to add a text-based description of the video's key visual elements as the first comment on the post.

Yes. Music performances present a unique captioning challenge. Standard captions cover spoken dialogue, but for music content, captions should also indicate that music is playing, identify the name of the piece or song when known, and note any lyrics being sung. For instrumental performances, the caption track should at minimum indicate "[Music]" or identify the piece being performed so that deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers know what is happening. Best practice is to describe the performance in enough detail that the caption experience is equivalent to what a hearing viewer receives from the audio. The video description comment should describe the visual elements of the performance as well—the setting, the performers, the instruments, and notable moments.

That format does not need to be avoided entirely. The accessibility concern with emojis is when they interrupt the middle of a sentence and make the surrounding text harder to follow when read aloud. Using a single emoji as a bullet point that precedes a complete, self-contained thought is much less disruptive, because each bulleted item reads as a complete unit. The problem arises when emojis are placed between words in a sentence—for example, "Texas Tech ⭐ University ⭐ will ⭐ support"—because the screen reader must read every emoji name as part of the sentence, fragmenting the meaning. A bulleted list using emoji markers at the start of each line is generally acceptable from an accessibility standpoint. Just keep the number of emojis per item to one and make sure each bullet item is a complete, readable thought.

Infographics and data charts require two layers of accessibility treatment. First, write a concise identifying alt text in the image alt text field—something like "Bar chart comparing enrollment by college, 2022 to 2026" or "Infographic showing the five steps in the financial aid application process." Second, add a long description as your first comment or a pinned comment on the post that describes the data, trends, or content the visual conveys in full detail. For a chart, this means identifying the data values, the categories being compared, the time period, the high and low points, and the trend the chart illustrates. For an infographic, describe each section of content in the order it appears. This gives screen reader users equivalent access to the information the visual communicates.

If the content is not under your control—meaning you did not create it and cannot edit it—sharing it is generally less of a legal exposure than posting inaccessible content you created yourself. Social media posts linking to third-party content sit at the lower end of the compliance risk spectrum. The most significant risk area is instructional content required for student access. That said, if you choose to share or repost inaccessible content, the best practice workaround is to add a comment or supplemental caption describing the missing accessibility information—an image description, a text summary of the video, or any alt text the original lacked. You cannot edit their content, but you can append what they omitted to your own post about it.

If you are collaborating on a post and the other account's contribution lacks alt text, your options are limited since you cannot edit their content directly. The practical workaround is to add a comment to the post that provides the missing description—describing the image or video content that the other account did not caption. Some accessibility advocates in the social media space add comments to inaccessible posts they want to engage with, noting that they would love to share the content but it lacks captions or alt text. That kind of gentle social pressure can also help push other creators toward better practices over time.

All recorded training sessions and instructional materials on the Digital Accessibility website are protected behind eRaider authentication. An active TTU eRaider account is required to access them. This decision was made to protect TTU's training content from being adopted wholesale by other institutions without attribution. If you have a colleague or external partner who needs access and cannot obtain an eRaider account, contact Jeff Luman directly at jeff.luman@ttu.edu to discuss options on a case-by-case basis.

Inaccessible content published after April 26, 2027 opens TTU to potential legal action. There has already been an uptick in accessibility lawsuits nationally following the DOJ ruling, and accessibility advocacy organizations have been observed actively recruiting individuals who use assistive technology to identify and report inaccessible content as part of pre-litigation efforts. Social media accounts with large audiences—Admissions, Athletics, Student Affairs—represent a higher-profile target than smaller departmental accounts, but any inaccessible post from any TTU account after the deadline is a potential avenue for a complaint or litigation. The good news is that social media posts from before the deadline do not count. Use the time between now and April 2027 to build the right habits so compliance becomes part of your normal workflow.

A requirement is a WCAG 2.1 AA success criterion that TTU must meet under the DOJ Title II ruling. Alt text on images and captions on video are requirements. Not meeting them after the deadline is a compliance failure with legal consequences. A recommendation is a best practice that meaningfully improves the experience for users with disabilities but is not a codified WCAG success criterion for the AA level. Moving emojis and hashtags to the end of posts, avoiding ASCII art, and using camel-cased hashtags are recommendations. They are the right thing to do and will make your content better—but failing to follow them is not the same legal exposure as posting an image without alt text.