Why YSK: If you want to make Lemmy a more accessible place for all, you need to know how to add labels (aka: “alt text”) to embedded images

As many of you are already aware, you can embed images in comments using the following markdown: ![](https://example.com/image.jpg).

That works, but the image will be left unlabeled which leaves screenreader users out of the conversation. This may seem like a theoretical problem, but it’s not – Lemmy already has an active blind community: https://rblind.com/

So, here’s what you can do to add labels when embedding images:

![Earth viewed from the Moon](https://example.com/image.jpg)

That’s it! Any text within the [] becomes “alt text”, which is what screenreaders use for describing images. It’s a small thing, but it makes a world of difference.

Remember: Reddit took something from many of us here. For some, it was a mobile app. For others, it was the ability to operate their own communities. Comment with solidarity; use alt-text.

  • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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    1 year ago

    A soldier in the film Starship Troopers speaks directly to the viewer: "I'm doing my part!"

    ![A soldier in the film Starship Troopers speaks directly to the viewer: "I'm doing my part!"](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/182/171/eb0.jpg)

        • CoderKat@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          The text isn’t supposed to show up. It’s alternative text for viewers that can’t see the image (or otherwise need it described).

          In web browsers, you often can long press the see alt or title text, though. As an aside, title text is kinda similar to alt text, but shows up on hover in desktop (on mobile, it’s also long press). It’s not meant for accessibility and not usually friendly for it. It’s usually for supplementary information and not to describe the image. Eg, an acronym might have title text that defines what the acronym stands for.

    • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      1 year ago

      Unrelated question, but are you a Stormlight Archive reader? I ask because of your username lol

      • wit@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        YES! But please don’t spoil. I am on the 4th book, Rythm of War, for many months now… I have read 50% but it just goes so slowly… The first and second book, The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, are my favorite books ever. Wit is one of my favourite characters, just so quick and witty and mysterious…

        • hugs
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          1 year ago

          Small spoiler about Wit, but an interesting bit of trivia for people who’ve read some Brandon Sanderson books

          Putting a bit of space, since the spoiler tag works on the web, but not on Jerboa (which is otherwise a decent Lemmy app)

          spoiler

          Brandon Sanderson would play a mental game when reading books, imagining a side character linked unrelated books.

          Wit is that character in his books, he features in (almost?) all his books, always a side character, and helps tie the whole cosmere books together in one universe.

          In the (excellent) Graphic Audio books, he’s always voiced by the same voice actor, which gives the secret away.

          And not a spoiler about Stormlight Archive, but I highly recommend the first trilogy of the Graphic Audio Mistborn audiobook. They are outstanding works (also Brandon Sanderson).

      • kiddblur@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I just finished rereading way of kings Friday and am reading SP3 right now! Hello fellow sanderfan

  • rbhfd@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Someone called me out on this yesterday. On a thread about rblind, so deservedly so. I had no idea this is how it works though. Thanks!

    • Samuel Proulx@rblind.com
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      1 year ago

      That was me, and my bad. As a blind person myself, I’ve never tried to post an image. I knew including alt text was possible, but I didn’t realize the method was undocumented, and Lemmy doesn’t prompt for it. If I had, I would have offered help, not just snark.

  • raiun@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Lemmy should do it similar to how I have seen this done on Mastodon. When you upload an image an overlay shows up to remind the user to describe the image before submitting. The typical user is not going to remember to do this.

  • Speckle@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This is really interesting and good to know, thank you for sharing. I’m going to try and remember this for all my images going forward.

    For posts that are image based does the OP need to describe them or is that covered somehow already by screen readers?

    • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      1 year ago

      Excellent question. For image-based posts, there is currently no mechanism to directly embed alt-text. This is likely to change in the future, however, so subscribe to lemmy#1086 for updates.

      For now, the general advice is to use the post body to describe the linked image (on Lemmy, all posts are allowed to have “self-post”-like text). This would work by linking the image directly as usual and also embedding the same image in the post text with alt-text included there.

    • ShittyKopper [they/them]@lemmy.w.on-t.work
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      1 year ago

      There are no descriptions for image posts. You can however make a post that is both an image and text post at the same time, and throw the description there, until a proper way to put alt text gets implemented.

          • dom@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            I tried liftoff and found it was hard to browse compared to jerboa. At least on dark mode. All the test being white and not visually distinct makes it less comfortable to browse than jerboa.

            I’ll have to try connect though

      • CeruleanRuin@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Sweet, I can actually read the alt text by long-pressing the image. This opens up a whole new avenue for good caption gags.

    • Bongles@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      You can click the little image button when commenting or posting, but it uploads it to the instance you’re on, which costs them space, so it’s probably limited in most instances

        • Bongles@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Yes, when I tried it just now it uploaded the picture and put the same text into the comment that you need to link external images ![alt text](link) it just had a link for the newly uploaded photo.

  • explodicle@local106.com
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    1 year ago

    Question for Jerboa users: how do you zoom in on one of these comment images? They’re frequently too small to read.

    • megahertz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m guessing it is in settings? Also a jerboa user. But I am seeing the comment images at a reasonable size. I’m using the dark theme, and I think I changed the font size, but it’s been almost a month since I first installed, so not super sure.

      • explodicle@local106.com
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        1 year ago

        Hmm, I don’t see anything for it in the settings. Some of the pictures are a reasonable size to me, I was thinking like pinch and zoom or something.

    • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      1 year ago

      Indeed, but just FYI: doing this is actually even worse than leaving a completely empty alt-text!

      Why? Because some browsers have experimental support for AI-generated alt-text. If an image has no alt-text, it’ll try to generate one, but only if the alt text is empty. This feature will probably become more common in the future, so please try to refrain from putting non-descriptive stuff in the alt-text area.

    • CoderKat@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      You shouldn’t do that. That’s not gonna help screen readers and in fact will just waste their time trying to read off a URL because it thinks it’s describing the image. The alt text is intended to be human readable.