Within the visual impairment community, the use of visual descriptions and encouraging people to describe what they look like is a bit of a controversial topic. Some individuals do not care what someone looks like at all and views describing what someone looks like as part of a broader social or political agenda, while others find them helpful for eliminating unconscious bias or helping to identify someone later on.
In order to provide some more context about visual descriptions and how they can be useful for individuals with visual impairments, I’ve documented my thoughts on visual descriptions as someone with low vision and vision loss from both an eye-based and brain-based condition. Do I speak for every person who lives with visual impairment, inclusive of blindness, low vision, and neurological visual impairment/CVI? Of course not. However, I will strive to include other perspectives when I can to provide more context on how visual descriptions are viewed.
First, what is a visual description?
In this context, a visual description is a strategy for people to share information about what they look like to an audience that might not be able to see them. Visual descriptions are commonly used in settings like conferences, presentations, or schools so that people can share what they look like in their own words, which can help to eliminate unconscious bias or help with identifying others at a later time. Visual descriptions are specifically beneficial for people with visual impairments, inclusive of blind, low vision, and neurological visual impairment (CVI).
For the purposes of this post, visual descriptions are different from media descriptions used for accessing images or other visual content, which may be referred to as alt text, image descriptions, video descriptions, or audio description.
Related links
- How To Create Helpful Visual Descriptions For Visually Impaired Audiences
- Seven Myths and Misconceptions About Alt Text
- 8 Myths About Audio Description
More background about me and my vision condition
Individuals who like visual descriptions or find them useful may be stereotyped as having low vision or some history of having vision in the past, being female, or only caring about descriptions of people they could be romantically interested in, but there hasn’t been much research in this space for understanding preferences for visual descriptions. To provide context, here’s some more background about me:
I am a white woman in her 20s that was diagnosed with visual impairment around the age of three. My vision loss is influenced by both an eye-based condition (strabismus and double vision) alongside a brain-based condition that contributes to frequent vision fluctuations and decreased acuity. My vision loss is progressive, meaning it has gotten worse over time, but I still primarily access information visually and use things like color, large print, and simplified displays to access visual information. I use a white cane (blindness cane) when navigating unfamiliar environments, but don’t always have it with me.
I find it helpful to get a lot of information at once and figure out what is relevant to me, instead of getting a basic description and then having to ask a bunch of follow-up questions. I’m also naturally drawn to color and want to know what things look like, especially since I can’t always get up close to an object or person to see what it looks like on my own.
Related links
- About Veroniiiica
- Two of Everything: Living With Double Vision
- Ten “Odd” Things I Do With Double Vision
- Learning To Explain Usable Vision
- Disability Accommodations For Fluctuating Eyesight
My first introduction to visual descriptions
When I first met one of my friends who is blind/has no usable vision, they mentioned that they imagined me being very tall with long black hair, blue eyes, and that I probably had at least three tattoos and a nose piercing. Another friend mentioned that they thought I had dark brown curly hair and that I had a lot of freckles on my face. Someone else mentioned they thought I had blonde hair, that I wore a lot of polka dots, and that my hair was very short/above my ears.
For the record, absolutely none of these visual descriptions of what I look like are correct, and didn’t resemble the appearances of any of their other friends or family members.
When my friends shared these inaccurate visual descriptions with me, I found them funny because they didn’t look like me at all, but I also wondered if I should tell them the truth. If I had made an assumption about what someone looked like that turned out to be wrong, I would absolutely want to be corrected, not because I would think differently of the person but because I want to have access to the same information that someone with no visual impairment would have access to.
I also remembered a story from another friend who had told me about how several of their blind friends didn’t believe them when they said they were a different race, and how frustrating that was. This helped me make the decision to tell my friends what I actually look like, and to encourage people to share visual descriptions to eliminate unconscious bias or minimize inaccurate assumptions.
Related links
- Questions To Ask Other Students With Low Vision
- How I Respond To Questions/Comments About My Eyes
- How To Write Alt Text For Amateur Art
Does it truly matter what someone looks like?
I’ve met several people who feel that providing visual descriptions is a waste of time, that they aren’t very helpful, or that they really don’t need to know what other people look like. These individuals may be stereotyped as being blind, having vision loss since birth, being male, or assuming that everyone looks like them. Even though my friends were wrong about what I looked like when I first met them, they didn’t change how they treated me or interacted with me once they knew “the truth”, so why bother telling them?
Going back to the earlier point of using visual descriptions to address unconscious bias, providing visual descriptions can also be a great way for individuals to describe themselves in their own words and avoid having others make assumptions about what they look like. I’d rather listen to someone describe themselves than listen to a description generated by another person, and this can be helpful when approaching someone later on or describing what they look like to a human guide. This is especially true in conference or professional settings where people may have similar sounding voices, names, and/or appearances. The most helpful visual descriptions are short at less than thirty seconds long, and ideally closer to fifteen seconds in order to be respectful of people who may not want to listen to them.
While I do use AI-powered visual assistance applications for several visual tasks, I personally avoid using them for faces or identifying/describing what people look like. I prefer human generated descriptions instead, especially since pointing my phone at someone could be uncomfortable for the other person.
Related links
Are people pressured to hide their “real” appearance with visual descriptions?
For a lot of people, it can be uncomfortable to figure out how to describe what they look like in a visual description for someone who is visually impaired, or they might be tempted to fixate on specific characteristics. I approach my guidelines for visual descriptions from the perspective of body neutrality and with the purpose of helping individuals with visual impairments identify what someone looks like, which can include centering characteristics that people have some control over such as hairstyle, glasses, and clothing.
When I originally put together my guide for visual descriptions, I recommended that people avoid mentioning details such as body measurements or clothing sizes. I had an experience where a person made a point to mention they were very thin and went as far as to mention their height, weight, and clothing size. I also was an audience member during another visual description where someone went on a tangent about their weight and how they wish they could change it, making a self-deprecating joke that was uncomfortable for people that were a similar size. Other attendees mentioned that this was triggering for people who live with feelings of body dysmorphia and felt that the information was inappropriate for that presentation.
I consider weight a neutral characteristic and do not include my own size in descriptions, but have met several people who self-identified themselves as being fat in their visual descriptions and felt this information was important to include. I also view disability and the use of mobility aids or assistive technology in a similar way, but ultimately it comes down to personal preference and comfort level about what information someone wants to include in their visual description.
Related links
- How To Create Helpful Visual Descriptions For Visually Impaired Audiences
- Tips For Using A Human Guide At A Conference
- How I Manage Conference FOMO With Chronic Illness
Visual descriptions and neurological visual impairment
Neurological visual impairment, cortical visual impairment, and cerebral visual impairment (CVI) often include visual impairments or distortions that go beyond acuity or image clarity, and can make it challenging to see details such as faces or what people look like. Individuals with CVI may find visual descriptions helpful as they can tell someone what a person looks like, and share details that can help them identify them later on. For example, one student I worked with would often confuse me with another student in their class who had a similar haircut, but they remembered that my visual description included me mentioning that I wore colorful earrings and glasses with purple frames. This student would look for the frames of my glasses or earrings instead of looking at other characteristics of what I looked like, and felt more confident saying hello to me in the hallway or approaching me since they knew what I looked like.
It is still important for people to identify themselves when talking or approaching someone (e.g. “this is Veronica”), but visual descriptions can still be helpful for providing a “list” of features to remember about a person. I strongly recommend avoiding guessing games or asking students questions like “don’t you know who I am?” or “guess who this is!” because they can be distressing for someone who may not identify people immediately.
Related links
- Meet The Cast: Supporting Literacy For Students With CVI
- How To Approach Someone with Low Vision Without Scaring Them
- School Cafeterias and Low Vision
More of my thoughts on visual descriptions with low vision
- Want to learn more about describing what people look like in the context of photojournalism or primary source content? Read How To Describe Primary Source Videos For Visually Impaired Audiences
- Interested in examples of visual descriptions? Read How To Create Helpful Visual Descriptions For Visually Impaired Audiences
- Are you a researcher interested in exploring this topic further? Reach out via the Contact page!
Published November 8, 2021. Updated February 2025