Hey all, with the continued influx of Twitter people, I'm once again seeing a drop in the number of people who add alt text/image descriptions to what they post, denying access to many disabled users here.
Exactly how you do this varies by Mastodon client app, but it is usually just below the image once you upload & before posting.
Even a short-but-useful description is better than nothing—focus on what you're trying to get others to get from the image rather than describing every detail.
Here's one useful guide as to what to write in your image descriptions for those that find such guidance helpful:
https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-write-an-image-description-2f30d3bf5546
But again, you do not need to be elaborate here, but do try to write something that will provide enough information to people who can't see or understand your image on its own that they can be included in the conversation rather than excluded.
@krisnelson
Back in early Web days, the thing we used to say was that the alt text should express the *point* of the image—what is the purpose it’s serving on this page?
I like the distinction made there between, for example, how you’d alt text the dog photo if it’s illustrating a news article (basically just filler) or if it’s on a site illustrating dog breeds.
Re: the purpose of alt text, some disabled creators are pushing back against the narrative that alt text must be as "efficient" in function as possible. I'm working with some multimedia artists on this topic, and this org is also thinking about new ways to look at access/alt text: https://alt-text-as-poetry.net
I'm not a screen-reader user myself, but those I've spoken to have a wide variety of opinions/needs w/r/t alt text, and i think best practices depend way more on context (is this an artwork, or a filler image?) and individual than can be summed up by general statements abt what screen reader users need!
@cavar @tkinias From the perspective of someone who reads alt text, "efficiency" is absolutely not what I care about primarily either. Screen readers speak very fast, and I can skip onwards quickly, after all! I'd prefer longer descriptions with the most key stuff at the beginning, personally.
"Efficiency" here is mostly a minimum standard as applied to the poster to get people to do it at all rather than a goal as to what would be ideal, if that makes sense?
@krisnelson @cavar
To be fair, lots of images on professional sites are in fact just space-fillers with no particular information value (“stock photo of ethnically-ambiguous smiling woman with a laptop”).
I think on social media (other than 4chan and the like) we tend to have in mind communicating something specific when we post an image.
@tkinias @krisnelson
What's most disheartening (ie: infuriating) is that most websites now use the IMG ALT tag for "SEO" and just stuff their keywords in there.
(I was web designer in The Early Days but am now a web content writer. )
@Myphatself @MxAlba If that's the key point you're trying to make with the image, then "good enough." If any details might matter to what you are trying to convey—expression, clothing, kind of award, background, etc.—then you might expand on that.
But note that there isn't some kind of absolute, universal rule about this! People have different preferences, etc., just like they do with what else you write. I'm just trying to convey what will be enough 90+% of the time.
@ellewadding Marking this as sensitive is almost always handled when you upload images, either at the time or you can set it as a default (your instance admin can also do this, but it's very rare; importantly, there's no algorithm or "AI" that does it).
I would thus expect to find it's set as a default, either in your general account preferences or specifically in your client app on your phone. Does this happen only when posting images via your phone or also when you post images via the web?
@Gaina_Cee I don't know if it's Tusky or not—certainly a number of clients don't make it easy to tell if an image has alt text or an image description! But I did skim your posts and this one you put up with Tusky does indeed have alt text, so that seems good:
@jimbodie No, it's not! There are two mechanisms you can use after the fact, though. See my post here:
@AIWashburn@masto.ai I just did some testing using the Mastodon web interface (v4.0.2). It possibly might vary by version, plus app clients might be different. Anyway: First, if you accidentally post an image without alt text and want to fix that, you can't "edit" the post and then "edit" the image to add alt text, but you can: 1. Delete & repost. This will give you an "edit" button on the image so you can add alt text. 2. Edit the post, then remove the image and re-add it, this time with alt text.
@krisnelson
To help get in the habit, follow:
@PleaseCaption@botsin.space
Which will review posts you make and nudge you.
@talon@dragonscave.space @imagecaptionspls@a.gup.pe @alt_text@mastodon.social There's also the community hashtags #Alt4Me to request descriptions and #Alt4You to see descriptions others create. I subscribed to the Alt For You hashtag and am loving the new images that are popping up!
If you use Mastodon app, it makes you add the ALT text.
I have now switched to Tusky, and I have to remember myself now because it doesn't remind me. I expect a lot of other people have found this too.
@krisnelson
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