Writing a description of where to start with good alt text that fits in a tweet I came up with and validated with Blind folks:
"What about the image is needed to welcome and include visually impaired people in the conversation"
I think that fits here too
(no shame to the person I'm replying to)
Starting from an AI description is great, but this is actually an example of how it can fall down. Despite the through direct descriptions, which is what AI is capable of, neither names the character or actor in the frame, and I'd argue that is crucial information. In addition...
I go back and forth on this because generally folks who are unfamiliar with vision impairments make a bunch of assumptions about what people with vision issues need just in general.
Also because a lot of other people use alt text, too.
I sort of land more here (ignoring the first sentence).
Alt text is not for Easter eggs.
Alt text, going back all the way to the beginning when images didn't always load reliably or quickly, is for making sure that even if people can't see the image, the point of it in that context still comes across.
Which is not a concise explanation and I'm pretty sure I've said it better elsewhere and it also annoys me to /not/ take a Disability Justice tack, but.
Absolutely, I come at it from a position of it being better to start people with a concrete goal they're bad at and can grow into as they practice.
Folks with partial impairment can be especially able to offer valuable feedback, though obviously they're under no obligation to.
Right. It's part of why I—as someone who is familiar with the goals of alt text, sometimes uses it for image comprehension reasons, and can both see the image and read the alt text—regularly check what kinds of trends I'm seeing in alt text on social media and where the problems seem to be.
A big problem I've been seeing is that people can get on board with doing alt text, but there's a huge lack of people paying attention to best practices and guidance on how to do it. I like to direct people to WebAIM's section on context and alt text but it doesn't help for images of text.
I dislike aspects of a lot of the guidance provided, specifically for social media. Unlike standard sites for instance where the guidance is often "minimal descriptions, more complete in actual text" often on social media images are with no accompanying text, & no pre-existing conversational context
Yes! Social media alt text is /different/. I focus more on the lack of guidance for actual text, but even doing alt text for images on social media is different because the context and point is often much more about conveying a "vibe" or emotion than some more concrete idea.
The amount of people who are baffled at what blindness means continues to amaze me. And in some ways humble me.
Like... I've been VI my whole life and blind for near half of it.
So many people think we dont use the internet 🙃
Not only do I use it, I help build it lmao.
Like. People get hung up on what total blindness looks like, think all blind people are totally blind (which isn't the case. At most 15% of the community has no light or colour perception)
And picture it as "you see black" and then blue screen trying to incision that.
I'm not completely blind. I did lose light and colour perception in my left eye last year but treatment brought it back ~95% of the way with just muted colour perception.
Still tho. My vision as of last check was -50/200.
Wrt my peripheral, past a certain point, yeah I can't see anything lol
Which people get hung up on. And like... The only way I know how to describe it which has helped some is like. Try looking at shit from the back of your head.
Because that's what it's like past a point in my peripheral. And it's honestly always been like that. It's just gotten worse over time.
That people can see such a wide swath of their surroundings from there peripheral always feels like a cruel joke people are playing on me ngl 😂
It doesn't feel real lol
But.
I can see shit, Albeit blurry, if it's close enough to my face. Past that, it's varying shades of blur. And just depends-
