Alt Text Hall of FameRE: https://mastodon.scot/@RabBrucesSpider1/116232160936189876
Very encouraging to read comments like these.
If you ever wonder: is adding alt text worth my time?
Yes, it is!
Halla Rempt@alttexthalloffame I do wish, though, that someone at some point in time, looks at my alt texts and tells me how to improve it.
Preferably without the colors vs no colors debate.
Jupiter Rowland@Halla Rempt Since you wanted criticism and advice, here it is. I'll add links to the corresponding pages in my wiki if there are any. (In case you're unaware: Parts of the Fediverse can do embedded links without a URL in plain sight. So if it has a different colour from the rest of the comment here, it's a link even if it isn't a URL.)
First of all: Don't start alt-text with "Photo of". Do mention any medium that isn't a digital photograph. But do not say if something is a digital photograph. It's generally considered the default medium on the Web, so mentioning it is redundant and needlessly inflates your alt-text.
Next: Don't use line breaks in alt-text. Yes, they make your alt-texts look prettier. But those who rely on alt-text can't see them anyway.
Besides, most screen readers expect alt-texts to be only one paragraph. They generally start reading out alt-text with something like, "Graphic." If there are multiple paragraphs, they'll take each paragraph for a separate alt-text and start reading out each one with, "Graphic."
Don't use the quotation marks on your keyboard in alt-text. Again, yes, they make your alt-texts look prettier. But, again, those who rely on alt-text can't see them anyway.
Besides, these quotes are not generally accepted as standard elements in alt-text. Hence, many frontends don't support them, not even in the Fediverse. Mastodon does.
But Hubzilla, for example, which is actually older than Mastodon (and which I'm commenting from right now), doesn't. Hubzilla keeps these quotes in alt-text as their HTML entity:
So, for example, you have this alt-text:
Photo of three books. These are manuals with grey covers, entitled "Owners Manual", "BASIC Users Manual" and "DOS Users Manual" The background is once again my painting table.
Hubzilla renders it as:
Photo of three books. These are manuals with grey covers, entitled "Owners Manual", "BASIC Users Manual" and "DOS Users Manual" The background is once again my painting table.
Now, let's assume someone blind uses Hubzilla with a screen reader. The screen reader will read your alt-text out loud like this:
Photo of three books. These are manuals with grey covers, entitled and quot, Owners Manual and quot, and quot, BASIC Users Manual and quot, and and quot, DOS Users Manual and quot, the background is once again my painting table.
And then there are (streams) and Forte. The former is a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla by Hubzilla's own creator, the latter is a fork of (streams) by the same guy. These two internally use this very same quotation mark as an alt-text delimiter. This means that once they hit a quotation mark in an alt-text, they assume it marks the end of the alt-text.
Hence, they render your above alt-text like this:
Photo of three books. These are manuals with grey covers, entitled
And they continue right after the end of your alt-text while completely ignoring the rest of your alt-text.
While we're at it: If you really want to make sure that screen readers pronounce your acronyms correctly, write them in a way that ensures just that.
Let's take "BASIC" as an example. Some screen readers may pronounce it, "basic" because they recognise it as a word. Some screen readers may pronounce it, "bee ay ess eye see" because they spell everything in all caps out.
If you want all of them to read it out as a word, don't write it in all caps.
In contrast, if you wanted all of them to spell it out, you'd have to insert full stops like so: "B.A.S.I.C."
These are two exceptions of the rule that text must always be transcribed 100% verbatim.
Don't explain things in alt-text. Explanations must always go into the post text where everyone can access them.
Why? Because there are people who cannot access alt-text. Often due to physical disabilities. In order to access alt-text, at least one sufficiently working hand is required. And there are more than enough cases in which people do not have sufficiently working hands at all.
Also, GNU/Linux users who run graphical browsers on minimalist window managers such as i3wm that are entirely controlled by keyboard can't access alt-text either. They'd have to move a mouse cursor either to the little "ALT" button or until it hovers above the image. But they don't have mice or other pointing devices. They control their machines entirely by keyboard.
But if all these people can't access your alt-text, they can't read your explanations. At all. They're lost to these people.
Lastly: Keep your alt-texts and image descriptions strictly neutral. Alt-text is no place for personal opinions.
CC: @Alt Text Hall of Fame
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta
First of all: Don't start alt-text with "Photo of". Do mention any medium that isn't a digital photograph. But do not say if something is a digital photograph. It's generally considered the default medium on the Web, so mentioning it is redundant and needlessly inflates your alt-text.
Next: Don't use line breaks in alt-text. Yes, they make your alt-texts look prettier. But those who rely on alt-text can't see them anyway.
Besides, most screen readers expect alt-texts to be only one paragraph. They generally start reading out alt-text with something like, "Graphic." If there are multiple paragraphs, they'll take each paragraph for a separate alt-text and start reading out each one with, "Graphic."
Don't use the quotation marks on your keyboard in alt-text. Again, yes, they make your alt-texts look prettier. But, again, those who rely on alt-text can't see them anyway.
Besides, these quotes are not generally accepted as standard elements in alt-text. Hence, many frontends don't support them, not even in the Fediverse. Mastodon does.
But Hubzilla, for example, which is actually older than Mastodon (and which I'm commenting from right now), doesn't. Hubzilla keeps these quotes in alt-text as their HTML entity:
".So, for example, you have this alt-text:
Photo of three books. These are manuals with grey covers, entitled "Owners Manual", "BASIC Users Manual" and "DOS Users Manual" The background is once again my painting table.
Hubzilla renders it as:
Photo of three books. These are manuals with grey covers, entitled "Owners Manual", "BASIC Users Manual" and "DOS Users Manual" The background is once again my painting table.
Now, let's assume someone blind uses Hubzilla with a screen reader. The screen reader will read your alt-text out loud like this:
Photo of three books. These are manuals with grey covers, entitled and quot, Owners Manual and quot, and quot, BASIC Users Manual and quot, and and quot, DOS Users Manual and quot, the background is once again my painting table.
And then there are (streams) and Forte. The former is a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla by Hubzilla's own creator, the latter is a fork of (streams) by the same guy. These two internally use this very same quotation mark as an alt-text delimiter. This means that once they hit a quotation mark in an alt-text, they assume it marks the end of the alt-text.
Hence, they render your above alt-text like this:
Photo of three books. These are manuals with grey covers, entitled
And they continue right after the end of your alt-text while completely ignoring the rest of your alt-text.
While we're at it: If you really want to make sure that screen readers pronounce your acronyms correctly, write them in a way that ensures just that.
Let's take "BASIC" as an example. Some screen readers may pronounce it, "basic" because they recognise it as a word. Some screen readers may pronounce it, "bee ay ess eye see" because they spell everything in all caps out.
If you want all of them to read it out as a word, don't write it in all caps.
In contrast, if you wanted all of them to spell it out, you'd have to insert full stops like so: "B.A.S.I.C."
These are two exceptions of the rule that text must always be transcribed 100% verbatim.
Don't explain things in alt-text. Explanations must always go into the post text where everyone can access them.
Why? Because there are people who cannot access alt-text. Often due to physical disabilities. In order to access alt-text, at least one sufficiently working hand is required. And there are more than enough cases in which people do not have sufficiently working hands at all.
Also, GNU/Linux users who run graphical browsers on minimalist window managers such as i3wm that are entirely controlled by keyboard can't access alt-text either. They'd have to move a mouse cursor either to the little "ALT" button or until it hovers above the image. But they don't have mice or other pointing devices. They control their machines entirely by keyboard.
But if all these people can't access your alt-text, they can't read your explanations. At all. They're lost to these people.
Lastly: Keep your alt-texts and image descriptions strictly neutral. Alt-text is no place for personal opinions.
CC: @Alt Text Hall of Fame
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta