There are a lot of blind people on here, who use screen reader software to tell them what is on the screen. To help screen reader users, it's a good idea to use emoji rather than old-style smileys.
For example 😄 will be read out loud as "smile" because that's its alt text. However, :D will be read out loud as "colon D".
(Some old-style smileys do work with screen readers, but most don't. Emoji are safer.)
If you're interested in accessibiity, I strongly recommend following @weirdwriter
@feditips @weirdwriter I'm happy to use emoji vs. old school ASCII smileys!
But just FYI, my version of VoiceOver reads the emoji in your post as "grinning face with smiling eyes" -- which is it's official name, I think?
EDIT: I just realized - I think the "title" and "alt" tags are being confused.
Agreed. @feditips , here is the HTML that Mastodon web used for a unicode emjoi:
< img alt="😤" title=":triumph:" ...
Mastodon presents an image, and sets the image alt text to the unicode character. You're probably seeing the image *title*, which browsers show on mouse-over or long-press.
But when it's a custom emoji, which doesn't have a unicode character, then the alt text and title are the same.
FediTips has moved!
Ahimsa
Alan Jenkins