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Pin3
My current interests are: #accessiblity, #AntiFascism, #identity, #IntersectionalFeminism, #LGBTQ (#trans, #NonBinary), politics, and race and curating posts to help people find information on these.
I also am very pro alt-text, content warnings and other info management tools. For people who dislike bookmarks:
#ThePragmaticCaseForAltText is below.
Pin 3/5
#Feditip This post is about #accessibility, specifically #CamelCase and #altText on #Mastodon. From a pragmatic as well as ethical point of view. If you are already signed up on ethical grounds, good job, let's keep at it!
Pragmatically: If you are not writing for an audience outside of people you personally know then there is a non zero chance you will have someone with difficulty seeing or with dyslexia try to read your work. Effective communicators remove barriers for their audiences.
1/T
Especially on Mastodon there is very much a culture of equality and respect for others. By showing that you appreciate these values you are more socially acceptable here.
Camel Case, https://www.boia.org/blog/make-your-hashtags-accessible is the practice of capitalising the start of each word in a #. E.g. #CamelCase. Those familiar with the difference between susanalbumparty and SusanAlbumParty will appreciate the effort, as will people with dyslexia. People with screen readers also benefit as described in the link.
2/T
By increasing accessibility, you also increase your audience AND the people willing to share your work.
For screen readers, I am told that having #Hashtags in every #other word is #annoying. Also it looks bad on screen. We have 500 characters try and put # at the bottom of the post.
In the next post I'll discuss alt-text.
3/T.
What is alt-text, how do you do it, why do you do it, what needs doing?
What is it?
Alt-text is the 1500 characters you get to describe an image you post.
How do I do it?
If you're posting a tweet/screenshot of an article than I'd advise using the desktop/Web login to Mastodon. It has a fairly good auto-transcribe feature which requires only minor edits.
For memes, photos and cartoons you're going to have to do it the more difficult way but it's a good habit to get into.
4/T
Why should I use alt-text?
Because people won't boost your images and they'll complain at you if you don't? Beyond being very rude to others, you deny yourself a wider audience by excluding people with visual difficulties.
Also people with limited reception appreciate this, and in many cases, the point of the meme may not be obvious to others.
You can clarify what _you_ think the point of the meme/cartoon is and avoid "Twit-terpretations" aka bad faith readings with alt-text.
5/T
How do I do good alt text?
This is the hard part. I'll use some examples from D-A grade below (IMO) and I'm not expert.
Share this with people who don't understand accessibility helps them meet their goals.
Also, images and posts cost money to host. Don't forget to support your local Mastodon server, even tiny amounts help! #BuyYourRound #MastodonServer #accessibility
Edit: A reader informs me that screenreaders don't do paragraphs of alt-text just one big lump. So try and be concise!
T/T
@Homebrewandhacking That's very helpful. I keep wondering how to best phrase alt text. Bigger is better apparently.
Well, time and energy is limited, which I do recognise. I've seen a lot of posts which meet the D grade "technically" level.
The important thing is to get the point you're trying to make across.
@Homebrewandhacking
I think you could stop at "Better," brevity is valued. The more expressive language of "Best" is good too but I would leave out the commentary that explains what the image means to you, that's an understanding an alt text reader can come to themselves from reading the good description (in context), same as a viewer of the image.
Absolutely. Realistically you can stop at any point where you've communicated information.
However: see my point about "bad faith interpretations" in post 5.
Sometimes I've lacked the context to understand pictures and a nice bit of alt text has helped me understand what the person posting means by it.
Remember: effective communication removes barriers to understanding.
This person is known to me as being quite lovely. The fact that we would draw such different interpretations from that image is an excellent point.
https://universeodon.com/@LizardSF/110056247063793039
@Homebrewandhacking Until I read the last alt text, I assumed the image meant "I am constantly annoying some people I didn't know existed until 4 days ago". This may say something about me.
Thank you! Different people different points of view! And an excellent example of why one might want to write down how to interpret a meme!
@Homebrewandhacking And now I'm wondering if different Tamarian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok) subcultures view their legends through their own cultural lenses, so the same phrase can mean different things in different cultures.
(That'd make a great gag on #LowerDecks.... )
I see what you did there, wrapping excellent advice in a quartet of memes. I'll have you know that's considered good form around here!
@nlarson830
Other people have been kind enough to educate me, I'm just passing it on.
@Homebrewandhacking I wonder why screenreaders don’t do paragraphs - it seems that a pause or something would be helpful in separating significant clumps of information for listeners like it does for readers.
I do not know.
I guess it is not considered interesting to develop good accessibility tools. :-/
@Homebrewandhacking As a sighted person sometimes I read alt text to find the meaning of memes/images that are hard to understand if you’re not full time into internet culture
@Homebrewandhacking for reference: https://wcag.com/blog/good-alt-text-bad-alt-text-making-your-content-perceivable/
Judging by this, the "best" example seems dubious as it eats away at the conciseness.