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---
schema_type: DigitalDocument
title: Detailed Image Descriptions Aren't Always Helpful
date: 2022-05-05
references:
- label: Original Post
url: https://mk.vulpes.one/notes/8zwxp9lywc
---
::: alert
I noticed that quite a few people write very extensive image descriptions.
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).
However, there are common situations where these image descriptions are in fact not helpful.
:::
Imagine you're using an online shop.
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.\
Now imagine that the shop displays a long textual description for each product instead.
This is what the timeline appears like to screen reader users if long image descriptions are used.
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.
Detailed descriptions are only helpful when the user has decided the content is interesting to them.
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.
But on the timeline, it's much more important to have quick summaries instead.\
In terms of the example above, it's the same when viewing a single product vs. the product list.
You're only interested in the details if a product is interesting to you.
Image description on fedi are a step up from having none at all, but they're still inadequate.
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.\
Since this possibility doesn't exist, please consider keeping image descriptions short and putting the long description in the post body.
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