Marcin Wichary4d ago

I’m curious: Did people/apps ever attempt to bundle alt text with the image as metadata? (Like EXIF?)

That feels like the right place to put it, so then it could be read by apps/browsers, and also travel with the image on save etc. Rather than specifying it as out-of-band text like we do today.

Show threadNaomi Stringfield4d ago
@mwichary In addition to what others have said, SEOs used to stuff keywords into alt text and some probably still do.
WordPress lets you store alt text with an image in their media library but then I'm not sure what it does with it.
Show threadMarcin Wichary3d ago
@naomi People abusing alt text wouldn’t materially change whether alt text is inside or outside the image, though? Unless maybe I’m missing something.
Show threadNaomi Stringfield3d ago
@mwichary Could have been me missing something, but I would think that alt text would depend on what page one were trying to drive traffic to, and thus would vary depending on what HTML it was being used in.
Show threadMarcin Wichary
@naomi Oh, I understand. Thanks!
Apr 10 at 10:03amWeb
Show threadNaomi Stringfield3d ago
@mwichary thanks to YOU for making me feel smart. I assure you I am a novice at web development :)