Images with Text

Images with embedded text can negatively affect both your website and the user’s experience in many ways. Not only do they cause problems for people with vision impairments, but also for people who are just trying to find information on your website. 

Reasons to avoid using images with embedded text

  • The text on images is not accessible to screen readers. Screen readers can recognize the image, but not the words embedded within it. This includes photos with text added in Photoshop or other editing software.
  • The text in images are not scalable and can be difficult to read on mobile devices.
  • The text on the images can’t be found by search engines such as Google. 
  • Images with text can cause color contrast issues between the text and background.
  • The text can’t be translated into other languages. 
  • The user can’t interact with the text. If you add an email address, URL, social media icons, etc, the user can’t click or copy/paste any of that information.
  • Users who have an unreliable internet connection and elect to not load photos on web pages will not see the information in the image.

For more information on how to use the cover block to add readable text over an image on WashU Web Theme sites, use our helpful tutorial Overlaying Text on an Image with the Cover Block.