Personally I think alt-text is valuable for everyone, not for just people with visual impairments.
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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.
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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.
@murdoccc @Yehuda I hear what you’re saying. Our images might be used for training too—it’s a messed up world. I do want to point out that at this point a single percent of respondents represents hundreds of people. Alt text could also make all the difference for one person who decides to follow you.
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@Yehuda
I am not visually impaired but frequently use alt-text for various reasons.1. To help when I don't get the point or focus of an image, but the alt-text causes me to say "Aha, now I see it!"
2. When my internet is being annoyingly slow at loading images, but quickly checking the alt-text gives me a general notion of the image content anyway.
3. When there is writing in the image in a language I don't know. I find that in most cases, if I used the translate function on the text of the post, it will also have translated the alt-text, which helps me read road signs, headlines, and memes.
