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1 | --- | ||
2 | schema_type: DigitalDocument | ||
3 | title: Detailed Image Descriptions Aren't Always Helpful | ||
4 | date: 2022-05-05 | ||
5 | |||
6 | references: | ||
7 | - label: Original Post | ||
8 | url: https://mk.vulpes.one/notes/8zwxp9lywc | ||
9 | --- | ||
10 | |||
11 | ::: alert | ||
12 | I noticed that quite a few people write very extensive image descriptions. | ||
13 | Mastodon in particular implies that this is the correct way since the character limit for them is [three times as high as the limit for the actual post content](https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/11819). | ||
14 | However, there are common situations where these image descriptions are in fact not helpful. | ||
15 | ::: | ||
16 | |||
17 | Imagine you're using an online shop. | ||
18 | What you'll typically see is a list of products where each list item has a small preview image, a product name and some other metadata.\ | ||
19 | Now imagine that the shop displays a long textual description for each product instead. | ||
20 | This is what the timeline appears like to screen reader users if long image descriptions are used. | ||
21 | And unlike people seeing the text, they don't have the luxury of skimming to grasp vital information quickly -- they can only wait for the screen reader to read all of it or until they decide to skip the rest. | ||
22 | |||
23 | Detailed descriptions are only helpful when the user has decided the content is interesting to them. | ||
24 | Currently, most fedi frontends put them in the attachment's `alt` attribute, which is fine if the user is currently viewing a single post instead of the timeline. | ||
25 | But on the timeline, it's much more important to have quick summaries instead.\ | ||
26 | In terms of the example above, it's the same when viewing a single product vs. the product list. | ||
27 | You're only interested in the details if a product is interesting to you. | ||
28 | |||
29 | Image description on fedi are a step up from having none at all, but they're still inadequate. | ||
30 | Ideally, you could provide both a quick summary and an in-depth description, and the UI presents both in a way that's the most helpful.\ | ||
31 | Since this possibility doesn't exist, please consider keeping image descriptions short and putting the long description in the post body. | ||