In a couple of different places on Mastodon this week I’ve seen people saying something to the effect of “what does visible alt text matter, it’s for screen readers.”
Here are just a few scenarios why people might want to view alt text visually:
1. “I made the post and I want to double check the alt text I wrote.”
2. “I did not make the post but I want to learn how other people write alt text so I can write better descriptions.”
3. “I’m having trouble making sense of the image but I think a written description would help.”
4. “My vision is enough to read text at my preferred font size but not in a tiny screenshot with jpeg compression.”
5. “This is what works best for me because of reasons I don’t want to get into.”
Accessibility is for everyone. Try not to make assumptions.
Becky likes this.
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Kat Marchán 🐈
in reply to Rachel Stantz • • •Anna Nicholson
in reply to Kat Marchán 🐈 • • •@zkat Randall Munroe uses title text (a different HTML attribute) for the xkcd mouseovers, so gets a pass 😉
I don’t feel that using alt text to add extra information is ideal: (a) people who rely on alt text (screenreader users and others) can’t filter out the extra info; and (b) people who don’t need the alt text probably won’t see the extra info 🤔
Richard Barrell
in reply to Kat Marchán 🐈 • • •@zkat xkcd has both title set to the joke text *and* he also sets alt. Alas he sets alt to just the title of the comic, not a description of it.
it's unfortunately confusing that the thing people *call* the "alt text" on webcomics is actually the title attribute, not the alt.
explainxkcd has people writing decent image descriptions for xkcd strips.
I think oglaf's author sets both alt= and title= to 2 different jokes on each strip. I've know of no other comic putting jokes in both.
Richard Barrell
in reply to Richard Barrell • • •White Noise
white-noise-comic.comFiXato
in reply to Richard Barrell • • •The process sure was more labour intensive than I'd originally anticipated, but I'd like to think I did a decent job: fixato.org/projects/described_…
I'm sure the HTML itself could be made more accessible, and ideally each page is accompanied by the actual images, which I skipped because I didn't want to hotlink them without the author's permission. I did link them the page via Twitter, but never got a response unfortunately.
@zkat @arjache
jon 2
Gale GalliganBecky
in reply to Rachel Stantz • •I'm on friendica and I still haven't quite figured out alt text. I want to sometime soon, but what I thought it was, either wasn't or I couldn't verify. I do use descriptions as part of my post though, so the post goes like:
Text
Pucture
Description of picture
I just have to hope it's better than nothing until I figure out the alt text stuff
Becky
Unknown parent • •Hypolite Petovan likes this.
the account formerly known as Luna
in reply to Rachel Stantz • • •wintery mx.
in reply to Rachel Stantz • • •I did a little poll on this recently and almost all of the hundreds of sighted people who answered said that they got something out of the alt text.
Also, not everyone with sight loss who might benefit from a screenreader has access to one (or has the skills/ability to use it). And trying to say it should be hidden away feels really gross to me. :/ I'm glad I haven't seen that, I probably wouldn't react well!
Chaz Brenchley
in reply to wintery mx. • • •Josiah Mannion
in reply to Chaz Brenchley • • •FiXato
in reply to Rachel Stantz • • •