Hi Local Guides.
My name is Ermes and today I would like to write about a topic that is rarely discussed in Connect: Captions
In my eight years at Connect I’ve seen captions written [by me too] in many different ways. Honestly, it took me a while to figure out which ones were useful and which ones weren’t. I think an explanation of how to do it would have allowed me to make my images more useful. For this reason I decided to write this post.
Adding a caption to our photos is an extremely important choice to make Connect more inclusive.
Adding a caption to our photos is very easy in the new Connect. Some of the procedures to do so have already been covered in this post by Kumaarsantosh: How to write CAPTION on New Connect
What is less understood is:
- Why add a caption to our photos? Who needs our caption?
- What to write in a Caption so that our caption is useful?
Why add a caption to our photos? Who needs our caption?
A simple answer can be found in How Do I Make My Photos And Images ADA Compliant?
Here is an excerpt from the article: “You … know that you need to make your images ADA compliant, so they are accessible to those with vision disabilities (can be blindness or partial blindness). Since they can’t see your images, you should provide them an alternative way to know what your photo is all about.”
ADA has become a reference for anyone in the world who deals with accessibility and social inclusion, and its guidelines have also transformed the way of managing information in the digital world, in order to make it accessible.
Click here to read more about ADA:
- Index of ADA in the United States Government website
- ADA Website: https://www.ada.gov/
- ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990) in Wikipedia
Do’s and Don’ts of Caption Writing. How to Make Them Useful?
The simple explanation above might make the next point redundant. However, given the many times captions are used incorrectly, I think a few examples might be helpful.
- How do Google Moderators write Captions in their posts in Connect?
I would like to start with a simple example that could give us a reference on how to write a Caption correctly.
The image below shows a comparison of how captions appear to a user with normal vision in the new Connect and the previous version of the platform.
Example of Captions
For your convenience I copy the text of the two Captions here
Left: “Caption: A GIF that shows an illustration of Connect on a browser with a blue ribbon over it.”
Right: “Caption: An illustration of two people, one of them holding a list, and a question mark, depicting questions being answered.”
Both describe the image, so that even those who do not see it can understand what is shown.
How to write a caption for more complex images?
These above are simple images that are easy to describe.
But how do we describe a more complex image to make our caption useful?
To do this, I chose an image that I took on January 15, 2022, in Palmanova. It’s the same I used in my cover photo in this post.
Then I imagined being there now, on the phone with a friend, and telling him what I was seeing, so that he could understand the place.
My caption: A Roman-style stone bridge with multiple arches spans a small moat or ditch, leading to a gatehouse. The bridge appears to be quite old and weathered.
The gatehouse is a large, imposing structure with a tall, arched gateway. It has a stone facade with decorative elements, including pilasters and a cornice. There are also small towers or turrets on either side of the gateway. The gatehouse is part of the Fortress of Palmanova, a star-shaped fortress built in the 16th century.
The gatehouse is surrounded by a grassy area with a slight slope leading up to the bridge. There are trees in the background, and the sky is clear and bright.
Mistakes I’ve Made in the Past:
The most common mistake I made in the past was not thinking about what purpose my caption was, and therefore using it to provide information that was lacking, or completely useless to those who couldn’t see my photo. Below are some examples of mistakes I made:
- Caption 1: Palmanova, photo taken by @ErmesT on Jan 15, 2022
- Caption 2: Palmanova, Udine Gatehouse, photo taken by @ErmesT
- Caption 3: The photo is showing an ancient bridge leading to a gatehouse.
Captions 1 and 2 are totally useless for captioning a photo. Where used mostly as a way to teach others only to use their own photos in Connect and Google Maps.
Caption 3 is a bit better, but it is extremely generic, and the reader may not really understand the beauty of the scene.
Do you normally add captions to your images and if so, what do you write in your caption?
Are you planning on adding descriptive captions to your Connect posts in the future?
Are there any other things you would like to know about captions and their use?
How I generate my Captions
Before concluding, a note on how I add my captions to images in my posts. I usually use Google Docs to write posts, where I can add the captions as an attribute of the image (Alt Text) and then paste everything into the Connect editor.
The captions created in this way are automatically inserted into the post
