When people "need" alt text to "see" images, their screen readers read aloud the descriptive text (if provided). It's not *just* for blindness but any vision-related impairments. Those w/migraines, vertigo, or chronic fatigue, say. Or garden variety "I can't read small text on mobiles anymore." - ThreadSky

tiffanyleigh.bsky.social • 141 days ago

When people "need" alt text to "see" images, their screen readers read aloud the descriptive text (if provided).

It's not *just* for blindness but any vision-related impairments. Those w/migraines, vertigo, or chronic fatigue, say. Or garden variety "I can't read small text on mobiles anymore."

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genbo.bsky.social•141 days ago

Or “I don’t understand what I’m looking at”.

imjackrudd.bsky.social•141 days ago

And also for people who have perfectly good vision but a poor internet connection - I've had plenty of situations where I've seen a picture's alt-text long before the picture itself loaded.

tiffanyleigh.bsky.social•141 days ago

That's happened a few times on bsky when new surges of users join and the site buckled a bit. No images loaded, but those with Alt Text were "visible"

tiffanyleigh.bsky.social•141 days ago

From Colorado State University, an Alt Text explainer and primer on Alt Text best practices

cozy-queer.bsky.social•141 days ago

maybe somebody has information:
that page says „no longer than 120 characters“.
I actually share my texts (book reviews) as pictures so I can tell more. then I use the text as alt text.
Is that an exception?
I see it as one 🤔 otherwise the main information wouldn’t be accessible.

birdsinboughs.bsky.social•141 days ago

If the image itself has text that should be a post, I would put that text in the post itself, then say something like “this image shows the same text which is written in the post”. You can thread longer posts just like you would if there wasn’t an image included

cozy-queer.bsky.social•141 days ago

I get it, thanks!
Thing is just then 1 post would be a huge amount of answers since I sometimes write way more than 1000 words about a book - so 6 to 10 „pictures“. I‘m just not used to Bluesky and don’t know how to use it then and deal with limited characters. But I‘ll think about it!
Thanks!

birdsinboughs.bsky.social•141 days ago

Welcome! One more thing in case it helps. If I click alt text with my screen reader it reads all text from the beginning. I can’t skim for what I want to read in the same way a visual reader can do, and it’s now an extra layer that only alt text readers have to do. This feels less accessible to me

birdsinboughs.bsky.social•141 days ago

My main recommendation would be to do what’s called a Thread. Since you’ve mentioned being new I don’t know if you’ve seen these yet. It’s basically writing your initial post then putting extra text as replies. This is usually what posters do, so readers will be very used to the system already

birdsinboughs.bsky.social•141 days ago

I’m visually impaired, and my perspective would be not to put a lot of text that should be the post into the image alt text. Best way I can explain it, you want to be able to glance at the image in the same way you would with your eyes

tiffanyleigh.bsky.social•141 days ago

I'm descriptive but not terse. And after the description I do sometimes add ancillary info related to the description.

birdsinboughs.bsky.social•141 days ago

I love extra content or fun little bits of context too, so it’s one of those things that has nuance and is hard to explain. Example: if someone has a cat picture and they describe the image and cat, but then talk about the cat’s personality or add jokes, that all adds to the reading experience

tiffanyleigh.bsky.social•141 days ago

I inherited chronic dry eyes fr my family so mornings my vision is iffy & blurred until I perform eyecare (wipes, compresses, heated eye masks etc). When I'm AM-scrolling on my smartphone I often can't read text in shared images, but I can always read alt text b/c their captions pop-out & are bigger

name-natalia.bsky.social•141 days ago

Thank you! As someone who experiences severe eye disease at only 26 yrs old I appreciate this

brianstorm.ing•141 days ago

One challenge I have is that guidelines say "be as clear and concise as possible", but I feel like expressing details and context in a meaningful way when it comes to my photography is not served when being concise, but also I'm not sure if people are wanting to listen to so much text.

tiffanyleigh.bsky.social•141 days ago

I think if you lead with the basic literal info of what one is seeing, then add details, that's fine. It's narrative and if there are flourishes or rabbit holes or Easter eggs, that can be interesting. But not if one loses the point of Alt Text (tell me what I'm looking at)

tiffanyleigh.bsky.social•141 days ago

I assume people skip parts after the descriptions. But some may "read" it all

prysmcat.bsky.social•141 days ago

Also, autism (and probably other things) can make figuring out context difficult. I have bad trouble with identifying faces, too.

Dyslexia makes reading fancy fonts hard.

Lots of reasons for alt text!

tiffanyleigh.bsky.social•141 days ago

Exactly. I didn't have the character count to list more examples, but this 100% 😊

captainhat.bsky.social•141 days ago

One of the main reasons I post my work on here is to show off my process, talk about how I come by my ideas and promote visual storytelling through the way I present my work. That often results in me putting quite a lot of text into my alt fields as otherwise there would be a lot of missing context.

captainhat.bsky.social•141 days ago

I do worry that I'm putting too much into my alt text though, as while I do try to ensure that I always start with a basic literal description I can often get into the weeds pointing out the visual references I'm trying to make.

captainhat.bsky.social•141 days ago

I'm sorry to be putting the onus on you to explain things to me (you don't have to respond if you don't want to ofc) but is that OK still? Is that an appropriate way to approach things? I'd put most of it into plaintext if it was on a webpage where I had no character limits but on here I don't.

captainhat.bsky.social•141 days ago

(that is to say, there is a character limit here so I have to be super economical in the main post, sorry, I should have edited that to remove the double negative but I kinda forgot to recheck).

tiffanyleigh.bsky.social•141 days ago

I think leading with the facts: what are we looking at? Then adding as much or as little past that as possible is fine. I think of the larger character limit as interesting footnotes after the main thesis (what is this) has been established.

I also think trying at all is worthwhile, so thank you 🙌

captainhat.bsky.social•141 days ago

Thank you for taking the time to respond; I have certainly picked up some useful pointers from this thread already (especially ways to reduce redundancy in alt text) and I appreciate your feedback as well; it's sometimes hard to know if I'm genuinely being helpful or just introducing extra problems.

cozy-queer.bsky.social•141 days ago

Also an interesting point (it was shared in similar words already): if art is involved - sometimes it’s just interesting/important what the artist themself shows there - because it’s not always what we see. (Interpretation wise or if a person doesn’t see everything/the colors/…)

liz-hall-e.bsky.social•140 days ago

I love reading the descriptions to see what the author emphasizes. Now I feel ripped off if there isn't alt text. Imagine how ripped off sineobe who actually needs it feels.

liz-hall-e.bsky.social•140 days ago

*someone (let down by autocorrect)
*spelling errors only obvious to writer once they show up in notifications

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