# Editable viz alt text for Accessibility | New in Tableau 2023.2

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2023-07-03
- **Format:** Video · 9 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data visualisation, Tool strategy
- **Tools:** Tableau (accessibility, cloud, dashboards, data guide)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/editable-viz-alt-text-for-accessibility-new-in-tableau-2023-2
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDrnl3mLckw

I show you how to edit the alternative text for each visualisation on a dashboard, a new accessibility feature in Tableau 2023.2. I also demonstrate how the macOS VoiceOver screen reader narrates a published Tableau dashboard, and check whether Tableau serves charts as images.

## Key takeaways

- In Tableau 2023.2 you can edit the alt text per visualisation via the Data Guide pane (Edit alt text) while in Web Edit
- Tableau auto-populates default alt text from chart metadata (e.g. "area chart of month of order date sales"), the same info you get via Command/Ctrl E on desktop
- Alt text is static, it doesn't update as you interact with or filter the chart
- macOS VoiceOver narrates not just chart titles but the specific alt text, and lets you navigate the whole dashboard by keyboard
- Tableau does not serve charts as flat images, it sends structured information to screen readers, so alt text checkers won't flag the charts themselves

## Chapters

- 0:48 Editing alt text in Web Edit
- 2:04 Default alt text from metadata
- 2:50 Enabling VoiceOver on macOS
- 3:58 VoiceOver navigation demo
- 6:20 Checking if charts are served as images
- 7:35 Plans for more accessibility content

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/editable-viz-alt-text-for-accessibility-new-in-tableau-2023-2

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just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena