Engineering and Psychological Principles of Alternative Text Organization in Digital Environments of Cultural Institutions

This study examines the principles of organizing alternative text (Alt-text) in digital environments, using the website of the Russian Museum as a case study. The research analyzes the cognitive aspects of Alt-text per-ception among visually impaired users and explores methods for optimizing audio descriptions for this user group. An experimental study involving 88 respondents confirmed the hypothesis that emotionally expressive Alt-text is perceived more comprehensively by visually impaired individuals compared to neutral descriptions. A positive correlation was identified between the degree of comprehension of the description and the number of epithets used by respondents when recalling the content (r = 0.52). Based on the findings, recommendations have been developed for creating accessible Alt-text to enhance the inclusivity of cultural institution websites. These recommendations include identifying and describing the primary compositional element, providing de-scriptions of secondary elements and the background, and conveying the sensory experience evoked by the image.