How to enable
auto-generated image labels in Microsoft Edge
In the Microsoft Edge browser there is now an
option to generate alternative text labels for images on the web
that do not include them. The “alternative text” or “alt text” is
a helpful label part of website code that screen readers use to
describe the contents of an image to people with vision loss.
Since not every image on the internet provides this information,
Microsoft Edge processes the image without any information using
machine learning (ML) to generate a description automatically.
The feature isn’t perfect, but the description will be better than
not having any information. Once you turn on the feature, the
browser will send any JPEG, PNG, GIF, WEBP, and any other image
format to the cloud for processing, and it’ll return a description
in five different languages and any text inside of the image in
more than 120 languages. The feature won’t work for images marked
as decorative, smaller than 50×50 pixels, excessively large, or
explicit.
This will work on Windows 10 and 11 computers running Microsoft
Edge.
To turn it on, you can use the applications key on your keyboard
to bring up a context menu. If you do not have one, you can also
use the Shift + F10 key to do the same while the web page is open.
Next, arrow down until you hear NVDA say Get image descriptions
from Microsoft, then press the Enter key. You should then be given
2 options. Choose the always menu, then press the Enter key. A
dialogue should come up saying Get image descriptions from
Microsoft. The following will be spoken. If an image
doesn’t have a useful description, Microsoft Edge will try to
provide one for you. To create descriptions, images are sent to
Microsoft. You can turn this off in settings at any time.
You will then be given 2 options: yes I am in and no thanks. Press
the Enter key on the first option.
Now, you will notice that where there were graphics that were not
spoken out, there will now be some type of label that it can read.
A good example to try it on (if you have a TVNZ on demand account)
is to sign in and go to the area where the movies are. You will
only hear new season, new episode (instead of the show/movies
names). With this feature turned on, you will then hear what they
are called (for example new episode young Sheldon or new episode
Shortland Street).
It should work on most webpages that have images that are not
labelled.