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2023-09-08 03:47:36

Link

irfan@firefish.social

Adding #AltText gets easier, way easier with time/practice. I've been adding alt text to my images ever since I started joining the #Fediverse through #Mastodon (initially), and while I was happy to do that, it was very different to how I would normally post photos on #Twitter, where I'd just post and forget.

So the Fediverse way added just a little bit more friction. I could add no alt text at all but I wasn't willing to do that, so I ended up not posting anything with photos spontaneously, or complex photos that I would have no idea how to describe in words. Regardless, I continue to make posts with photos whenever I feel prepared to add alt text to them.

Then after a while without even realising, adding alt text has gotten really easy and not something I even think about anymore, i.e. whether I'm willing to post and describe any of the photos - like on Twitter, I just post any of the (shitty) photos I wanted to, with the addition of simply describing them via alt text. Sometimes I'd have minor difficulty of describing something, but it's never been anything that couldn't be helped with just a bit of googling.

I still think that Fedi services should continue making adding alt texts easier and more accessible for newcomers not used to describing every single photo they post. Not sure if I qualify to recommend tips for adding alt texts to photos, but if I were to give some tips to beginners, I'd say I've learned that 1) your alt texts need not be absolutely perfect with details of every single thing in the photo - focus on the subject/relevant context, 2) if you don't know how to describe a particular thing, try to figure what it's called by googling, otherwise just describe it the best way you can or seek assistance from others by adding the hashtag #Alt4Me to your post, and 3) an alt text is always better than no alt text at all - so don't worry about your alt text being insufficient, it will get better over time and you can always edit it in the future.

2023-09-08 08:49:38

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Link I'd like to add one more point.

If you absolutely want to write a detailed #ImageDescription, or you have to (yes, there can be reasons for that), and you're on something that isn't #Mastodon, don't put it into the #AltText.

Sure, the alt-text culture largely came from Mastodon. And most #Fediverse users have probably been taught what alt-text is while on Mastodon, and if not, then by Mastodon users. And yes, Mastodon gives you much more space in alt-text than in the post text.

But all the other Fediverse projects don't.

Mastodon gives you 500 characters save for modified instances. But:
#Misskey gives you 3,000 characters.
#Firefish gives you 3,000 characters at default settings.
#Pleroma gives you 5,000 characters at default settings.
#Akkoma gives you 5,000 characters at default settings.
#Friendica, #Hubzilla and #Streams all give you a practically unlimited amount of characters.

So "there's no room in the post" isn't true in most cases. Mastodon's limitations only apply to Mastodon. Everywhere else, you're free from them.

Besides, the longer an alt-text is, the more inconvenient it becomes for #ScreenReader users. A screen reader can only read alt-text in one chunk. It can't rewind to one specific point in the alt-text and re-read from there. If screen reader users want something re-read, they'll have to go all the way back to the beginning of the alt-text.

Lastly, you should never put any information that's only available in the image description into the alt-text. There are actually people who cannot access alt-text, for example due to a physical disability that prevents them from hovering a mouse cursor over an image (some of us sighted people aren't on mobile). Any information that's only in the alt-text is inaccessible and therefore lost to them. They can only read what's in the post text itself.

Yes, a full-blown image description in the post text doesn't look good. Yes, posts look neater with the image description tucked away in the alt-text. Yes, some Mastodon users protest against posts with over 500 characters in their federated timelines. But there are also Mastodon users who protest against having to write alt-text because they can't be bothered.

And there are disabled Mastodon users who'd protest against detailed image descriptions in alt-text that they'd like to read, but can't, if they knew that such image descriptions exist underneath particular images.

I've actually conducted a test and demonstration with a very long image description:

in alt-text where it was expectedly cut off at the 1,500-character mark by Mastodon and other projects
in a separate article which not only is inconvenient again, but only available to #Hubzilla users and people with websites of their own
in the post text which blew the initially very short post way out of proportion, but which was the most accessible method by far

As far as I can see, putting the image description into the post text is the preferred way.

2023-09-08 10:04:10

Ned ‘Jonathan’ Schofield

urlyman@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland Thanks for this. I feel practical examples would help:

What then for when a toot with an accompanying image written under a 500 constraint is, say, 450 characters and let’s say the considered image description is 200.

Should one use the spare 100 to say something like “Image description in threaded toot”, and then do that?

2023-09-08 23:20:42

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Jonathan Schofield Depends.

If it's the kind of #AltText that "How to write good alt-text for your website/blog" websites propagate, and if it doesn't contain any information that sighted people can't find elsewhere in the toot, then it goes into the alt-text.

If it's actually an #ImageDescription with information that a casual sighted layperson coming across the toot can't deduce from reading the toot, a thread would be the best short-term option. In this case, yes, the alt-text should mention that the image is described in a reply to this toot.

If you find that you regularly write #ImageDescriptions with information that can't be found anywhere else in your posts, forget #Mastodon, pack your things and move to #Firefish. Or #Akkoma or even #Friendica if you need that extra capacity.