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.
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 🐈
•Anna Nicholson
•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
•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
•White Noise
white-noise-comic.comFiXato
•The process sure was more labour intensive than I'd originally anticipated, but I'd like to think I did a decent job: https://fixato.org/projects/described_for_you/jon2.html
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
Text
Pucture
Description of picture
I just have to hope it's better than nothing until I figure out the alt text stuff
Becky
Hypolite Petovan likes this.
the account formerly known as Luna
•Erik
•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
•Josiah Mannion
•FiXato
•