crossposted from https://wandering.shop/@meredithw/113983437672884349
this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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Microblog Memes
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A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
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Just realized I've seen the push multiple times to include alt text, but not guidance on how.
Is there an actual etiquette to follow or even a specific format for alt text? Or just a sentence describing the image and call it a day?
Maybe this blog post is of use. Good Alt Text, Bad Alt Text — Making Your Content Perceivable.
If you don't feel like reading the entire post you can skip to "Writing good alt text — Context is key".
The Web Accessibility Initiative has tons of content. For images, you can start from their tips to get started & tutorials that links to.
Here specifically, you can learn how to set alt text in markdown.
Ok, that's helpful for providing alt text for images inside the body of a post.
Bus what about image posts? When using the web interface I don't see any opportunity for entering the alt text. 🤔
Apparently, some instances offer it: you might want to ask your instance administrator to upgrade. If yours doesn't offer it, the text alternative can be adjacent as stated in the success criterion for non-text content
and the techniques for it identified with prefix G. The
altattribute is merely 1 way to accomplish that.When it's a screenshot of a webpage, a link to the source often makes sense as a text alternative. I see way too many images that could be blockquotes & links, which are often superior to an image: more accessible & more useful to everyone else. That's often the case of good accessibility: it benefits everyone else.
I tend to explain what it is, and what is the important part. Thinking about it from the perspective of what someone might need to know while also respecting their time. I think "Screen shot of Lemmy post feed with nav bar at top, first post says "blah", second post says "blah blah", third post says...", I think that's too much unnecessary detail. So I'd do something like "Screen shot of Lemmy post feed, showing the third post called "Blah blah" has a green highlight over the first word" or whatever the message is I'm trying to get across with the screenshot.
I don't know if there is etiquette or a specific format but I would write as much as is needed to convey the reason you're including the image (whether that is a sentence or 100 words), striking a balance between making sure someone who is relying on the alt text can understand everything they need to know while also respecting their time.