Personally I think alt-text is valuable for everyone, not for just people with visual impairments.
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@Yehuda Surprising results up to now (more than 3:1 in favor of reading alt text for seeing people, closer to 1:1 for visually impaired people)
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@Yehuda Extremely often there are additional message there. Or explanations. Like, it says this is a photo of pop group xyz who I've never heard of. Or explains a pun. Often people add an extra joke.
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@bigtuffal @Yehuda same here. Plus it's an act of mindfulness for me not to spam socials with images but instead try to communicate why this is worth looking at
Just so. Which part of this picture do I want the onlooker to focus on.
Plus some alt text is hilarious. Not mine
but I do like hunting for Easter eggs -
@Yehuda I'm borderline visually impaired insofar as I'm old and often looking at tiny images on my phone screen, so I read alt text to find out what I'm looking at. It's especially helpful if the image has text (cartoons etc).
When I write alt text I mostly aim for context rather than literal visual description of everything in the picture.
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Sometimes it is easier to read the transcription in the alt-text than the text in the image. Also I can copy the alt-text in a foreign language and get a machine translation.
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@Yehuda mostly i use it when a) I don’t get the joke and hope there’s an explanation, b) I don’t get the text because it’s in a different language but alt text can be translated.
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Just so. Which part of this picture do I want the onlooker to focus on.
Plus some alt text is hilarious. Not mine
but I do like hunting for Easter eggs@Helenisenough @bigtuffal @Yehuda i will at times be the easter Bunny
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@equalitysiren @Yehuda Yeah, I'm now wondering that too.
@Cassandra @equalitysiren @Yehuda Yes, screen readers actually do read the poll choices.
Additionally for screen reader users saying I'm a screen reader user And I skip reading alt text is very rare if not inpossible as screen readers are setup to present the images with alt text and skip images without it by default.
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E em0nm4stodon@infosec.exchange shared this topic
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@Yehuda I use Mosjhidon, and images don't load by default, I only see alt text. If a post has an image with no alt text, the post is hidden.
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@Yehuda
Mastodon is a bad exemple of alt text : it mixes description, legend and alternative text.
Alternative text must be used -as it has been designed for- as an alternative for people who need it, not like a creative extra text field for jokes or exclusives informations. The role of alt text is precisely to reduce the understanding gap between peoples, not to expand it.
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@Yehuda I'm torn on this issue. Accessibility is important, but companies that use our content to train their algorithms can go to hell on the express way. If this poll ends with only 2% of users in need of alt text, it might change my behavior.
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@Yehuda I read ALT text for several reasons:
-Gives me the context of memes and other pics I don't understand just by looking at them.
-A certain image won't load (app issues, server issues, connection issues).
-I'm curious to see how other people describe images. I genuinely enjoy it sometimes as someone interested in writing, and it gives me ideas for my own ALT descriptions. -
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@Cassandra @equalitysiren @Yehuda Yes, screen readers actually do read the poll choices.
Additionally for screen reader users saying I'm a screen reader user And I skip reading alt text is very rare if not inpossible as screen readers are setup to present the images with alt text and skip images without it by default.
@pvagner Thank you!
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@Yehuda Sometimes. Maybe not often.
I agree that it is really important for everyone.
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Well that's the problem
Mastodon culture acknowledges that someone some people need alt text due to disability
But it does not acknowledge that some people cannot see, hear, or read alt text, due to other disabilities
I think the point @gub is making is that by putting jokes or extra info in the alt text, people are excluding some of the disabled folks here
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@Yehuda I'm not visually impaired but usually read alt-text.
Some of it is beautiful. Some calls attention to details I might have missed, especially reading on a small screen. Sometimes there are Easter eggs. I've seen alt-text in two, even three languages! And if I'm going to share a post I check for alt-text *and* read it. Once caught an account that always put "Follow us on Facebook" in their alt-text, which I promptly muted.
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@Yehuda mostly i use it when a) I don’t get the joke and hope there’s an explanation, b) I don’t get the text because it’s in a different language but alt text can be translated.
