Hello Redditors - I write freelance for a website that deals with perfume, the scent industry, and general talk about smell, history of scent, chemistry, etc. I've been trying to make the alt text for images on our pages better when I post them to our text editor, but then I realized I didn't know what makes for the best experience in these cases. For example, if I am posting a photograph of lavender, and this goes in context with a story about the chemical constituents of lavender oil, there are a lot of ways to write alt text. For instance, each of these would be appropriate: Lavender; Bulgarian lavender, Close-up photo of lavender florets, blueish colored lavender from Bulgaria, lavender which has a sweet aroma, lavendula augustafolia, etc. This is actually an easy example. Some are much more difficult. For example, I wrote about an Italian perfumer who lives in Amsterdam, and took a photo that showed some of his lab surroundings, some of his finished work, and some artwork in the background. How should I summarize an image like that?

I know there's no perfect answer here, but I'd love to hear some ideas that would help me write more useful and more sensory alt descriptions so that the images which accompany the writing will give a better sense of the whole. For instance, should the text be a complete sentence? Should it be more concrete or more descriptive?