A few extra seconds of your time it takes to add a good image description can really improve someone's day.
"To a totally blind person like me it means a lot to have a picture in my mind of your images, especially the animal pics."
"I don't know what it is, but as a blind user it's making me emotional to be able to actually interact with content."
@alttexthalloffame My much older brother tells the story, from his childhood in the 1950s, of my mother driving the car through the countryside and narrating what she saw so that her blind (from diabetes) husband could enjoy the view. My brother would lie down on the back seat, close his eyes and see the world the way his father saw it.
I think of that every time there’s a request here to include ALT text descriptions on Mastodon. It’s such a small ask with such a huge upside.
PEEPS, no it is not a small ask for a lot of people. it does change the posting flow. IOW it takes time for those adjustments to sink in.
as a writer, i take microblogging seriously. so when this became an issue here, i decided to honor the request.
it doesn't feel natural at all. there are times too much is going on in an image that i feel like am cheating by not including it all.
sometimes i want to get the post out of the way & include the AltTex on edit. 1/2
so, FWIW it would be nice to have on the fediverse what Reddit had for a while: there was a brigade of folks adding the AltText in a comment.
we have Monsterdon here on Sundays and part of the fun is the fast posting of commentary. that could have GIFs or images from the movie or something else and most folks don't add an AltText immediately. i certainly don't. i come back later.
it would be nice for other folks to offer an AltText so we can add it on edit. 2/2
@alttexthalloffame @Kimota94 i did not know that. this should be an ongoing fedi tip.
oops, forgot to say thanks.
@alttexthalloffame
@blogdiva @Kimota94
So, I wanted to ask, especially to our blind users:
Sometimes an image is missing alt text, so I add it, and I add the tag #Alt4You
Does that help people find alt text, added by somebody else, that's not actually attached to the image posted?
Or do people find that there's no alt text, and then don't look in the replies for #AltText?
I just hope my efforts aren't wasted.
How do people with low vision use the #Alt4You hashtag? Are you able to reliably fish these posts out of the comments when a pic doesn’t have its own? Do you follow the hashtag to supplement your feed with accessible posts? It’s not immediately obvious to me, so I’m trying to figure out the best/most helpful way to use it. Thanks for any thoughts you’re willing to share 🙏
@potungthul I always look in the replies.
I don't think your effort is wasted.
@bright_helpings
Thank you! I will make more of an effort to add alt text to images without it, just in case you're the one reading. :)
I know what you mean about added image descriptions in the replies getting lost. On twitter I used to use quote tweets to add image descriptions.
But quoting posts doesn't work the same way here. So I do a reply with #AltText4You and then try to remember to boost the reply (I've been told that boosting helps?)
Not sure what's best.
Alt Text Hall of Fame
Kimota94
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
Potung Thul
Moon joy
Baethyn
Ahimsa