Managing alt text for your images inside of WordPress is a constant hassle. Tracking down which images have descriptive text (or not), whether or not the alt text is accurate, updating the text in a manageable way in a single location – it’s a total nightmare.
When we first launched Otherboard, that was a key problem we aimed to solve – and we did an okay job of it. We always knew we’d iterate on it based on your feedback as Otherboard users – and boy, you had great feedback.
By listening to several of our customers who had key insights around alt text management, we were able to ship a release for alt text management improvements that one of our users called, and I quote, “a game changer!” 🤩.
Before recent releases, here’s what you had to do to find missing alt text and update an image:
- Go to Sheet View
- Find posts with the ⚠️ icon in the Image column
- Click through to the post
- Click on the WordPress tab
- Scroll down to Images
- Find the image (or images) with the missing alt text.
- Write and save alt text for each image.
Ugh. Not terrible – but definitely not great. The feedback we got from our users was various iterations of the following:
It’s nice that I can add alt text, but what if I want to update existing text?
An awesome Otherboard user
I have tons of images in my posts – I wish I could see just the images that are missing alt text
Yet another fantastic Otherboard user
Why can’t I update the alt text in bulk – write for each one, then click save, instead of having to save over and over again? And why do I have to click so many times to get to the alt text?
You guessed it, one more Otherboard user who is, let’s say, so cool.
All of these lovely Otherboard patrons were pointing to the same pain points – alt text management was fine, but not great. So we embarked on a journey (that we may never end!) to make it great.
Now, right inside Otherboard, you can:
- Click on the ⚠️ icon in Sheet View
- See only the images on that post that are missing alt text
- And update them all at once.
BOOM. And if you go into the WordPress page that you had to go to before? You can now bulk add alt text there and edit existing alt text.
We love these newest updates to the alt text management functionality inside of Otherboard. We hope you find it as game-changing as some of our current users do, too. Want more out of alt text management inside of Otherboard? Let us know in the comments below!