Post #4137041

2026-07-26 18:49 UTC

If you're working on how to write alt text and an example is helpful, here's how I alt-texted this image, and why I wrote the alt text the way I did. Alt text: Solidarity means alt text. Hand-lettered message in bold uppercase framed by vines and flowers. The words "alt text" are large and prominent. The "A" in the word "means" is circled, forming a circle-A for anarchism. The circle-A is centered in the image. The frame illustration is made of simple line drawings of wavy vines with flower buds and leaves. The letters and floral frame are white on a black background. The illustration is signed in a lower corner of the frame with the handle calends of april. Explanation: There's a lot going on here! Here's a breakdown: 1) Inverted pyramid structure: start with the most important thing to convey about the image, then add some detail, then finish up with supplemental info. In this case the words are the most important part of the illustration, so the message itself goes first, followed by further description of the visual elements of the words. There is also a description of the floral frame and even the colors used if folks want to know more and choose to read on. 2) This alt text is formatted both for screenreaders and for folks who click the button to read the alt text visually (like I need to on bad visual processing days). Breaking the text into paragraphs and adding quotation marks can help those latter folks parse the info. (There are cases where I would use the words "quote" and "unquote" around a word or phrase for a screenreader, but this isn't one of them.) For screenreaders, I try to choose phrasing that will be the most parseable when read out loud with no visual cues – and I literally read alt text out load before posting. 3) I can get wordy, but I try to keep my alt texts reasonably short while still conveying the pertinent info. Even shorter than this would also work, like this: "Solidarity means alt text. Message framed by vines and flowers." This would suffice! Please do at least this! When it's me who needs the alt text, though, I prefer having more detail, so I usually add it to my own alt text. The inverted pyramid model means that folks can choose to stop reading early and still get the most important info. And solidarity means alt text. Please use it. 4/4 #altText #solidarity #solidarityMeansAltText #disabilityLiberation #anarchism

Replies (2)

@jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu 2026-07-26 20:24

@@calendsofapril@kolektiva.social Line breaks and the quotation marks from your keyboard are both terrible ideas in alt-text. Both are not officially count as elements supported in alt-text, and especially line breaks in alt-text are an invention by complete laypeople on Mastodon. Line breaks are a bad idea because screen readers will consider each paragraph in your alt-text an individual alt-text for an individual image. And screen readers tend to start reading out alt-texts for images with something like, "Graphic." So if your alt-text has three paragraphs, a screen reader will start reading out each one with, "Graphic." Reference #1: Steve Faulkner (@@SteveFaulkner@mastodon.social), Short note on coding alt-text, TPGI, September 15th, 2015; https://www.tpgi.com/short-note-on-coding-alt-text/. Reference #2: Adrian Roselli, Long alt, adrianroselli.com, April 20th, 2024, last update November 8th, 2024; https://adrianroselli.com/2024/04/long-alt.html Double quotes from your keyboard are an even worse idea. That's because they can make certain Fediverse server applications malfunction. I'm not even joking here. First of all, there's Hubzilla, the most feature-rich Fediverse server software of all and one of the most technologically advanced (https://hubzilla.org; https://joinfediverse.wiki/Hubzilla). I'm commenting from Hubzilla right now. When there are keyboard double quotes in an alt-text, Hubzilla renders them as their corresponding HTML entities: ". A screen reader will read them out as something like, "And quot," and raise its voice afterwards unless a full stop follows. And then there are (streams) (https://codeberg.org/streams/streams; https://joinfediverse.wiki/(streams)) and Forte (https://codeberg.org/fortified/forte), both descendants of Hubzilla, created and still maintained by Hubzilla's original creator. These two use keyboard double quotes as alt-text delimiters internally. So when they encounter the first keyboard double quote in an alt-text, they will assume that this is where the alt-text ends. They will not render the parts of the alt-text starting with that first keyboard double quote. Instead, they will silently discard them. Quotation marks are unnecessary in alt-text anyway. In stark contrast to what everyone on Mastodon believes, alt-text is mostly for screen reader applications. But if you absolutely need quotation marks in alt-text, either use single quotes or typographically correct quotes (“” or »« or «»). One more thing: You've mentioned "supplemental info". I sincerely hope that you aren't talking about explanations for the image itself. Explanations, credits, license information and any other information that is neither present in the message text nor visible to sighted users in the image does not belong into alt-text. Explanations and other extra information must always go into the message text where everyone can access it who can access the message! Why? Because there are people who cannot access alt-texts. I'm still not joking. I've explained this in my WIP wiki about image descriptions and alt-texts in the Fediverse: https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/wiki/jupiter_rowland/How(20)to(20)describe(20)images(20)in(20)the(20)Fediverse/Can(20)everyone(20)access(20)alt-text(3f) Reference: kwbell.eu (@@decembr14@mastodon.scot), 'Alt' text for Mastodon images, April 9th, 2023, last edited June 1st, 2023 Another reference: these actual Mastodon posts which are comments on one of my posts from a few years ago, posted by a user whose hands don't work sufficiently enough to have the physical ability to open an alt-text. RE: https://hachyderm.io/@gnomicutterance/110685869957855464 RE: https://hachyderm.io/@gnomicutterance/110690586917684870 RE: https://hachyderm.io/@gnomicutterance/110690592405651398 RE: https://hachyderm.io/@gnomicutterance/110690603250669254 RE: https://hachyderm.io/@gnomicutterance/110691919197248049 #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #A11y #Accessibility

Open ##4337921
@felurx@troet.cafe 2026-07-27 17:00

@calendsofapril@kolektiva.social Genuinely wondering: Why is #alttext so widespread (and actively demanded) on Fedi, while other #accessibility measures are basically never talked about? Is image accessibility just this much more of a (fixable) barrier than other things? Is it a matter of "alt text is used" -> "people who need alt text show up and stay" -> "education and demand for alt text exist" -> "more and better alt text, repeat"? Or something else / a mix of factors?

Open ##4337922