#a11y — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #a11y, aggregated by home.social.
-
Cracked stone, dim alley
White blooms strain toward fading sunlight.#FlowerPhotography #MacroPhotography #NaturePhotography #Wildflowers #UrbanNature #MoodyPhotography #BackyardBotany #Chicago #Pixelfed #Fediverse #A11y
-
Cracked stone, dim alley
White blooms strain toward fading sunlight.#FlowerPhotography #MacroPhotography #NaturePhotography #Wildflowers #UrbanNature #MoodyPhotography #BackyardBotany #Chicago #Pixelfed #Fediverse #A11y
-
Cracked stone, dim alley
White blooms strain toward fading sunlight.#FlowerPhotography #MacroPhotography #NaturePhotography #Wildflowers #UrbanNature #MoodyPhotography #BackyardBotany #Chicago #Pixelfed #Fediverse #A11y
-
Cracked stone, dim alley
White blooms strain toward fading sunlight.#FlowerPhotography #MacroPhotography #NaturePhotography #Wildflowers #UrbanNature #MoodyPhotography #BackyardBotany #Chicago #Pixelfed #Fediverse #A11y
-
Cracked stone, dim alley
White blooms strain toward fading sunlight.#FlowerPhotography #MacroPhotography #NaturePhotography #Wildflowers #UrbanNature #MoodyPhotography #BackyardBotany #Chicago #Pixelfed #Fediverse #A11y
-
RE: https://mastodon.social/@Meyerweb/116652774075981072
Spanning table cells are always a layout bummer and often a screen reader navigation hassle. But this associates stuff correctly.
The CSS is where I tried a different approach for the Safari bug:
https://codepen.io/aardrian/pen/yyVYdbj?editors=0100 -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@Meyerweb/116652774075981072
Spanning table cells are always a layout bummer and often a screen reader navigation hassle. But this associates stuff correctly.
The CSS is where I tried a different approach for the Safari bug:
https://codepen.io/aardrian/pen/yyVYdbj?editors=0100 -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@Meyerweb/116652774075981072
Spanning table cells are always a layout bummer and often a screen reader navigation hassle. But this associates stuff correctly.
The CSS is where I tried a different approach for the Safari bug:
https://codepen.io/aardrian/pen/yyVYdbj?editors=0100 -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@Meyerweb/116652774075981072
Spanning table cells are always a layout bummer and often a screen reader navigation hassle. But this associates stuff correctly.
The CSS is where I tried a different approach for the Safari bug:
https://codepen.io/aardrian/pen/yyVYdbj?editors=0100 -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@Meyerweb/116652774075981072
Spanning table cells are always a layout bummer and often a screen reader navigation hassle. But this associates stuff correctly.
The CSS is where I tried a different approach for the Safari bug:
https://codepen.io/aardrian/pen/yyVYdbj?editors=0100 -
New meyerbloggery! I was asked for a good way to mark up (and display) a table with a diagonally-split header cell, and I couldn’t find one, so I came up with something that appears to be accessible. Now I’m throwing it out to the community to see if I’m wrong. Markup, styling, reasoning, and live-example link here: https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2026/05/28/accessible-i-think-split-cell-table-headers/ #HTML #CSS #A11Y
-
New meyerbloggery! I was asked for a good way to mark up (and display) a table with a diagonally-split header cell, and I couldn’t find one, so I came up with something that appears to be accessible. Now I’m throwing it out to the community to see if I’m wrong. Markup, styling, reasoning, and live-example link here: https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2026/05/28/accessible-i-think-split-cell-table-headers/ #HTML #CSS #A11Y
-
New meyerbloggery! I was asked for a good way to mark up (and display) a table with a diagonally-split header cell, and I couldn’t find one, so I came up with something that appears to be accessible. Now I’m throwing it out to the community to see if I’m wrong. Markup, styling, reasoning, and live-example link here: https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2026/05/28/accessible-i-think-split-cell-table-headers/ #HTML #CSS #A11Y
-
New meyerbloggery! I was asked for a good way to mark up (and display) a table with a diagonally-split header cell, and I couldn’t find one, so I came up with something that appears to be accessible. Now I’m throwing it out to the community to see if I’m wrong. Markup, styling, reasoning, and live-example link here: https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2026/05/28/accessible-i-think-split-cell-table-headers/ #HTML #CSS #A11Y
-
New meyerbloggery! I was asked for a good way to mark up (and display) a table with a diagonally-split header cell, and I couldn’t find one, so I came up with something that appears to be accessible. Now I’m throwing it out to the community to see if I’m wrong. Markup, styling, reasoning, and live-example link here: https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2026/05/28/accessible-i-think-split-cell-table-headers/ #HTML #CSS #A11Y
-
bennypowers.dev/posts/let-equals-equal-equals/
#Web #Browser spec authors intentionally broke=assignments to preserve a kind of encapsulation that almost nobody wants. This violates the Priority of Constituencies, harms #a11y AT users, and should be fixed immediately. Reference Target is complementary and welcome, but it is not a substitute for making imperative assignment work. -
@Tom Cole It is available everywhere AFAIK.
But: The convenient black "Alt" button in the corner is exclusive to Mastodon's Web interface plus maybe a few phone apps that have adopted it since. Technically speaking, a UI element to show alt-texts is completely unnecessary because alt-text is only a stand-in for the image itself, for when the image cannot be seen for whichever reason. The alt-text as an extra source of information is a purely Mastodon thing where people use it to expand their meagre 500-character limit by up to another 6,000 characters.
Just about everywhere else in the Fediverse, there is no button for showing alt-texts. That's also because there's nowhere in the Fediverse where people really need alt-texts to write around their tiny character limits, so that alt-texts can be what alt-texts are literally everywhere outside of Mastodon: a stand-in for the image and nothing more than that.
The normal way in the Fediverse (and other social networks and social media) for sighted people to access an alt-text is by moving the mouse cursor upon the image and hovering in there, and the alt-text pops up. The alt-text is thetitletag at the same time. This has been the case on Mastodon before, I think, version 4.4 as well. I guess Mastodon changed that because just about everyone on Mastodon is on phones, and you don't have a mouse cursor on a phone, so you have to long-press on the image which is a not very intuitive thing to do.
Here on Hubzilla where I'm commenting from right now, the alt-text still is thetitletag as well. In order to read an alt-text, the mouse cursor has to be hovered above the image. And Hubzilla has no alternative to its Web interface, only different themes for the Web interface. There is no phone app, at least none worth speaking of.
Also, on Hubzilla, we don't need to use alt-texts to write around character limits. Our character limit is 16,777,215, and that's the maximum size of the database field for the message text. Actually, on Hubzilla, alt-texts are included in these over 16 million characters as opposed to separate data fields. Thus, sighted Hubzilla users have no use for alt-texts whatsoever. Thus, there's no reason to make opening alt-texts easier (as if that was Hubzilla's only UI issue). Thus, there's no "Alt" button, and there will never be one.
It's just about the same just about everywhere else from Misskey (hard-coded 3,000 characters) to Akkoma (configurable 5,000 characters) to Friendica (same limit as Hubzilla) to (streams) and Forte (over 24 million characters) to pure long-form blogging stuff like WordPress, Ghost, Write Freely and Plume.
Now I ask you: What are people supposed to do whose both hands had to be amputated due to some accident? Or people with deformed hands who can neither use a smartphone nor a computer mouse nor a trackball nor any other pointing device on a computer? Who operate their computer with e.g. a headpointer, a plastic stick strapped to their forehead with which they poke the keys on their computer? And who are in the Fediverse, but not on Mastodon? How are they supposed to open an alt-text with only a keyboard as an input device?
Or how about people with a severe tremor? Who have big troubles moving a mouse cursor over an image and then keeping it there because it keeps slipping away? Who probably operate their computers via the keyboard and only the keyboard, too?
Or, a wholly different example, how about those who use Linux with a super-minimalist, keyboard-only tiling window manager? Who do have a GUI (albeit a very frugal one), who do use graphical Web browsers, but who deliberately, intentionaly, do not have any kind of pointing device? Who, nonetheless, are ten times faster with only keyboard shortcuts than you and me are with a mouse? How are they supposed to move a mouse cursor over an image without a mouse?
This is something that many Mastodon users don't know:- Not all Fediverse frontends have an "Alt" button.
- "Alt" buttons make no sense in the non-Mastodon Fediverse. In the non-Mastodon Fediverse, the character limits are so high that nobody has to use alt-texts to write around them. Expanding the character limit with alt-texts is a 100% Mastodon-only thing that simply doesn't translate to places with thousands or millions of characters and never will.
- There are other disabilities out there than visual impairments and neurodivergence. Even in the Fediverse.
- Not everyone in the Fediverse uses a pointing device of whichever sorts.
Oh, and there's one more thing: Misskey and its various forks (Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS, CherryPick etc.) all have a character limit of 512 for alt-texts. They should enforce it the same way as Mastodon enforces its 1,500-character limit for alt-texts, namely by truncating longer alt-texts. This is bad enough already.
However, they all have the same nasty bug that still hasn't been fixed yet AFAIK: Instead of truncating longer alt-texts, they delete them. So if you describe your image in an alt-text of more than 512 characters, users on Misskey, Sharkey & Co. will never know that your image is supposed to have an alt-text. Instead, they may think that you were too lazy to describe your image. And if you use the alt-text to explain your image in over 512 characters, this explanation will never reach users on Misskey, Sharkey & Co.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #i3 #i3wm #Disability #A11y #Accessibility -
@Tom Cole It is available everywhere AFAIK.
But: The convenient black "Alt" button in the corner is exclusive to Mastodon's Web interface plus maybe a few phone apps that have adopted it since. Technically speaking, a UI element to show alt-texts is completely unnecessary because alt-text is only a stand-in for the image itself, for when the image cannot be seen for whichever reason. The alt-text as an extra source of information is a purely Mastodon thing where people use it to expand their meagre 500-character limit by up to another 6,000 characters.
Just about everywhere else in the Fediverse, there is no button for showing alt-texts. That's also because there's nowhere in the Fediverse where people really need alt-texts to write around their tiny character limits, so that alt-texts can be what alt-texts are literally everywhere outside of Mastodon: a stand-in for the image and nothing more than that.
The normal way in the Fediverse (and other social networks and social media) for sighted people to access an alt-text is by moving the mouse cursor upon the image and hovering in there, and the alt-text pops up. The alt-text is thetitletag at the same time. This has been the case on Mastodon before, I think, version 4.4 as well. I guess Mastodon changed that because just about everyone on Mastodon is on phones, and you don't have a mouse cursor on a phone, so you have to long-press on the image which is a not very intuitive thing to do.
Here on Hubzilla where I'm commenting from right now, the alt-text still is thetitletag as well. In order to read an alt-text, the mouse cursor has to be hovered above the image. And Hubzilla has no alternative to its Web interface, only different themes for the Web interface. There is no phone app, at least none worth speaking of.
Also, on Hubzilla, we don't need to use alt-texts to write around character limits. Our character limit is 16,777,215, and that's the maximum size of the database field for the message text. Actually, on Hubzilla, alt-texts are included in these over 16 million characters as opposed to separate data fields. Thus, sighted Hubzilla users have no use for alt-texts whatsoever. Thus, there's no reason to make opening alt-texts easier (as if that was Hubzilla's only UI issue). Thus, there's no "Alt" button, and there will never be one.
It's just about the same just about everywhere else from Misskey (hard-coded 3,000 characters) to Akkoma (configurable 5,000 characters) to Friendica (same limit as Hubzilla) to (streams) and Forte (over 24 million characters) to pure long-form blogging stuff like WordPress, Ghost, Write Freely and Plume.
Now I ask you: What are people supposed to do whose both hands had to be amputated due to some accident? Or people with deformed hands who can neither use a smartphone nor a computer mouse nor a trackball nor any other pointing device on a computer? Who operate their computer with e.g. a headpointer, a plastic stick strapped to their forehead with which they poke the keys on their computer? And who are in the Fediverse, but not on Mastodon? How are they supposed to open an alt-text with only a keyboard as an input device?
Or how about people with a severe tremor? Who have big troubles moving a mouse cursor over an image and then keeping it there because it keeps slipping away? Who probably operate their computers via the keyboard and only the keyboard, too?
Or, a wholly different example, how about those who use Linux with a super-minimalist, keyboard-only tiling window manager? Who do have a GUI (albeit a very frugal one), who do use graphical Web browsers, but who deliberately, intentionaly, do not have any kind of pointing device? Who, nonetheless, are ten times faster with only keyboard shortcuts than you and me are with a mouse? How are they supposed to move a mouse cursor over an image without a mouse?
This is something that many Mastodon users don't know:- Not all Fediverse frontends have an "Alt" button.
- "Alt" buttons make no sense in the non-Mastodon Fediverse. In the non-Mastodon Fediverse, the character limits are so high that nobody has to use alt-texts to write around them. Expanding the character limit with alt-texts is a 100% Mastodon-only thing that simply doesn't translate to places with thousands or millions of characters and never will.
- There are other disabilities out there than visual impairments and neurodivergence. Even in the Fediverse.
- Not everyone in the Fediverse uses a pointing device of whichever sorts.
Oh, and there's one more thing: Misskey and its various forks (Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS, CherryPick etc.) all have a character limit of 512 for alt-texts. They should enforce it the same way as Mastodon enforces its 1,500-character limit for alt-texts, namely by truncating longer alt-texts. This is bad enough already.
However, they all have the same nasty bug that still hasn't been fixed yet AFAIK: Instead of truncating longer alt-texts, they delete them. So if you describe your image in an alt-text of more than 512 characters, users on Misskey, Sharkey & Co. will never know that your image is supposed to have an alt-text. Instead, they may think that you were too lazy to describe your image. And if you use the alt-text to explain your image in over 512 characters, this explanation will never reach users on Misskey, Sharkey & Co.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #i3 #i3wm #Disability #A11y #Accessibility -
@Tom Cole It is available everywhere AFAIK.
But: The convenient black "Alt" button in the corner is exclusive to Mastodon's Web interface plus maybe a few phone apps that have adopted it since. Technically speaking, a UI element to show alt-texts is completely unnecessary because alt-text is only a stand-in for the image itself, for when the image cannot be seen for whichever reason. The alt-text as an extra source of information is a purely Mastodon thing where people use it to expand their meagre 500-character limit by up to another 6,000 characters.
Just about everywhere else in the Fediverse, there is no button for showing alt-texts. That's also because there's nowhere in the Fediverse where people really need alt-texts to write around their tiny character limits, so that alt-texts can be what alt-texts are literally everywhere outside of Mastodon: a stand-in for the image and nothing more than that.
The normal way in the Fediverse (and other social networks and social media) for sighted people to access an alt-text is by moving the mouse cursor upon the image and hovering in there, and the alt-text pops up. The alt-text is thetitletag at the same time. This has been the case on Mastodon before, I think, version 4.4 as well. I guess Mastodon changed that because just about everyone on Mastodon is on phones, and you don't have a mouse cursor on a phone, so you have to long-press on the image which is a not very intuitive thing to do.
Here on Hubzilla where I'm commenting from right now, the alt-text still is thetitletag as well. In order to read an alt-text, the mouse cursor has to be hovered above the image. And Hubzilla has no alternative to its Web interface, only different themes for the Web interface. There is no phone app, at least none worth speaking of.
Also, on Hubzilla, we don't need to use alt-texts to write around character limits. Our character limit is 16,777,215, and that's the maximum size of the database field for the message text. Actually, on Hubzilla, alt-texts are included in these over 16 million characters as opposed to separate data fields. Thus, sighted Hubzilla users have no use for alt-texts whatsoever. Thus, there's no reason to make opening alt-texts easier (as if that was Hubzilla's only UI issue). Thus, there's no "Alt" button, and there will never be one.
It's just about the same just about everywhere else from Misskey (hard-coded 3,000 characters) to Akkoma (configurable 5,000 characters) to Friendica (same limit as Hubzilla) to (streams) and Forte (over 24 million characters) to pure long-form blogging stuff like WordPress, Ghost, Write Freely and Plume.
Now I ask you: What are people supposed to do whose both hands had to be amputated due to some accident? Or people with deformed hands who can neither use a smartphone nor a computer mouse nor a trackball nor any other pointing device on a computer? Who operate their computer with e.g. a headpointer, a plastic stick strapped to their forehead with which they poke the keys on their computer? And who are in the Fediverse, but not on Mastodon? How are they supposed to open an alt-text with only a keyboard as an input device?
Or how about people with a severe tremor? Who have big troubles moving a mouse cursor over an image and then keeping it there because it keeps slipping away? Who probably operate their computers via the keyboard and only the keyboard, too?
Or, a wholly different example, how about those who use Linux with a super-minimalist, keyboard-only tiling window manager? Who do have a GUI (albeit a very frugal one), who do use graphical Web browsers, but who deliberately, intentionaly, do not have any kind of pointing device? Who, nonetheless, are ten times faster with only keyboard shortcuts than you and me are with a mouse? How are they supposed to move a mouse cursor over an image without a mouse?
This is something that many Mastodon users don't know:- Not all Fediverse frontends have an "Alt" button.
- "Alt" buttons make no sense in the non-Mastodon Fediverse. In the non-Mastodon Fediverse, the character limits are so high that nobody has to use alt-texts to write around them. Expanding the character limit with alt-texts is a 100% Mastodon-only thing that simply doesn't translate to places with thousands or millions of characters and never will.
- There are other disabilities out there than visual impairments and neurodivergence. Even in the Fediverse.
- Not everyone in the Fediverse uses a pointing device of whichever sorts.
Oh, and there's one more thing: Misskey and its various forks (Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS, CherryPick etc.) all have a character limit of 512 for alt-texts. They should enforce it the same way as Mastodon enforces its 1,500-character limit for alt-texts, namely by truncating longer alt-texts. This is bad enough already.
However, they all have the same nasty bug that still hasn't been fixed yet AFAIK: Instead of truncating longer alt-texts, they delete them. So if you describe your image in an alt-text of more than 512 characters, users on Misskey, Sharkey & Co. will never know that your image is supposed to have an alt-text. Instead, they may think that you were too lazy to describe your image. And if you use the alt-text to explain your image in over 512 characters, this explanation will never reach users on Misskey, Sharkey & Co.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #i3 #i3wm #Disability #A11y #Accessibility -
@Tom Cole It is available everywhere AFAIK.
But: The convenient black "Alt" button in the corner is exclusive to Mastodon's Web interface plus maybe a few phone apps that have adopted it since. Technically speaking, a UI element to show alt-texts is completely unnecessary because alt-text is only a stand-in for the image itself, for when the image cannot be seen for whichever reason. The alt-text as an extra source of information is a purely Mastodon thing where people use it to expand their meagre 500-character limit by up to another 6,000 characters.
Just about everywhere else in the Fediverse, there is no button for showing alt-texts. That's also because there's nowhere in the Fediverse where people really need alt-texts to write around their tiny character limits, so that alt-texts can be what alt-texts are literally everywhere outside of Mastodon: a stand-in for the image and nothing more than that.
The normal way in the Fediverse (and other social networks and social media) for sighted people to access an alt-text is by moving the mouse cursor upon the image and hovering in there, and the alt-text pops up. The alt-text is thetitletag at the same time. This has been the case on Mastodon before, I think, version 4.4 as well. I guess Mastodon changed that because just about everyone on Mastodon is on phones, and you don't have a mouse cursor on a phone, so you have to long-press on the image which is a not very intuitive thing to do.
Here on Hubzilla where I'm commenting from right now, the alt-text still is thetitletag as well. In order to read an alt-text, the mouse cursor has to be hovered above the image. And Hubzilla has no alternative to its Web interface, only different themes for the Web interface. There is no phone app, at least none worth speaking of.
Also, on Hubzilla, we don't need to use alt-texts to write around character limits. Our character limit is 16,777,215, and that's the maximum size of the database field for the message text. Actually, on Hubzilla, alt-texts are included in these over 16 million characters as opposed to separate data fields. Thus, sighted Hubzilla users have no use for alt-texts whatsoever. Thus, there's no reason to make opening alt-texts easier (as if that was Hubzilla's only UI issue). Thus, there's no "Alt" button, and there will never be one.
It's just about the same just about everywhere else from Misskey (hard-coded 3,000 characters) to Akkoma (configurable 5,000 characters) to Friendica (same limit as Hubzilla) to (streams) and Forte (over 24 million characters) to pure long-form blogging stuff like WordPress, Ghost, Write Freely and Plume.
Now I ask you: What are people supposed to do whose both hands had to be amputated due to some accident? Or people with deformed hands who can neither use a smartphone nor a computer mouse nor a trackball nor any other pointing device on a computer? Who operate their computer with e.g. a headpointer, a plastic stick strapped to their forehead with which they poke the keys on their computer? And who are in the Fediverse, but not on Mastodon? How are they supposed to open an alt-text with only a keyboard as an input device?
Or how about people with a severe tremor? Who have big troubles moving a mouse cursor over an image and then keeping it there because it keeps slipping away? Who probably operate their computers via the keyboard and only the keyboard, too?
Or, a wholly different example, how about those who use Linux with a super-minimalist, keyboard-only tiling window manager? Who do have a GUI (albeit a very frugal one), who do use graphical Web browsers, but who deliberately, intentionaly, do not have any kind of pointing device? Who, nonetheless, are ten times faster with only keyboard shortcuts than you and me are with a mouse? How are they supposed to move a mouse cursor over an image without a mouse?
This is something that many Mastodon users don't know:- Not all Fediverse frontends have an "Alt" button.
- "Alt" buttons make no sense in the non-Mastodon Fediverse. In the non-Mastodon Fediverse, the character limits are so high that nobody has to use alt-texts to write around them. Expanding the character limit with alt-texts is a 100% Mastodon-only thing that simply doesn't translate to places with thousands or millions of characters and never will.
- There are other disabilities out there than visual impairments and neurodivergence. Even in the Fediverse.
- Not everyone in the Fediverse uses a pointing device of whichever sorts.
Oh, and there's one more thing: Misskey and its various forks (Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS, CherryPick etc.) all have a character limit of 512 for alt-texts. They should enforce it the same way as Mastodon enforces its 1,500-character limit for alt-texts, namely by truncating longer alt-texts. This is bad enough already.
However, they all have the same nasty bug that still hasn't been fixed yet AFAIK: Instead of truncating longer alt-texts, they delete them. So if you describe your image in an alt-text of more than 512 characters, users on Misskey, Sharkey & Co. will never know that your image is supposed to have an alt-text. Instead, they may think that you were too lazy to describe your image. And if you use the alt-text to explain your image in over 512 characters, this explanation will never reach users on Misskey, Sharkey & Co.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #i3 #i3wm #Disability #A11y #Accessibility -
@Tom Cole It is available everywhere AFAIK.
But: The convenient black "Alt" button in the corner is exclusive to Mastodon's Web interface plus maybe a few phone apps that have adopted it since. Technically speaking, a UI element to show alt-texts is completely unnecessary because alt-text is only a stand-in for the image itself, for when the image cannot be seen for whichever reason. The alt-text as an extra source of information is a purely Mastodon thing where people use it to expand their meagre 500-character limit by up to another 6,000 characters.
Just about everywhere else in the Fediverse, there is no button for showing alt-texts. That's also because there's nowhere in the Fediverse where people really need alt-texts to write around their tiny character limits, so that alt-texts can be what alt-texts are literally everywhere outside of Mastodon: a stand-in for the image and nothing more than that.
The normal way in the Fediverse (and other social networks and social media) for sighted people to access an alt-text is by moving the mouse cursor upon the image and hovering in there, and the alt-text pops up. The alt-text is thetitletag at the same time. This has been the case on Mastodon before, I think, version 4.4 as well. I guess Mastodon changed that because just about everyone on Mastodon is on phones, and you don't have a mouse cursor on a phone, so you have to long-press on the image which is a not very intuitive thing to do.
Here on Hubzilla where I'm commenting from right now, the alt-text still is thetitletag as well. In order to read an alt-text, the mouse cursor has to be hovered above the image. And Hubzilla has no alternative to its Web interface, only different themes for the Web interface. There is no phone app, at least none worth speaking of.
Also, on Hubzilla, we don't need to use alt-texts to write around character limits. Our character limit is 16,777,215, and that's the maximum size of the database field for the message text. Actually, on Hubzilla, alt-texts are included in these over 16 million characters as opposed to separate data fields. Thus, sighted Hubzilla users have no use for alt-texts whatsoever. Thus, there's no reason to make opening alt-texts easier (as if that was Hubzilla's only UI issue). Thus, there's no "Alt" button, and there will never be one.
It's just about the same just about everywhere else from Misskey (hard-coded 3,000 characters) to Akkoma (configurable 5,000 characters) to Friendica (same limit as Hubzilla) to (streams) and Forte (over 24 million characters) to pure long-form blogging stuff like WordPress, Ghost, Write Freely and Plume.
Now I ask you: What are people supposed to do whose both hands had to be amputated due to some accident? Or people with deformed hands who can neither use a smartphone nor a computer mouse nor a trackball nor any other pointing device on a computer? Who operate their computer with e.g. a headpointer, a plastic stick strapped to their forehead with which they poke the keys on their computer? And who are in the Fediverse, but not on Mastodon? How are they supposed to open an alt-text with only a keyboard as an input device?
Or how about people with a severe tremor? Who have big troubles moving a mouse cursor over an image and then keeping it there because it keeps slipping away? Who probably operate their computers via the keyboard and only the keyboard, too?
Or, a wholly different example, how about those who use Linux with a super-minimalist, keyboard-only tiling window manager? Who do have a GUI (albeit a very frugal one), who do use graphical Web browsers, but who deliberately, intentionaly, do not have any kind of pointing device? Who, nonetheless, are ten times faster with only keyboard shortcuts than you and me are with a mouse? How are they supposed to move a mouse cursor over an image without a mouse?
This is something that many Mastodon users don't know:- Not all Fediverse frontends have an "Alt" button.
- "Alt" buttons make no sense in the non-Mastodon Fediverse. In the non-Mastodon Fediverse, the character limits are so high that nobody has to use alt-texts to write around them. Expanding the character limit with alt-texts is a 100% Mastodon-only thing that simply doesn't translate to places with thousands or millions of characters and never will.
- There are other disabilities out there than visual impairments and neurodivergence. Even in the Fediverse.
- Not everyone in the Fediverse uses a pointing device of whichever sorts.
Oh, and there's one more thing: Misskey and its various forks (Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS, CherryPick etc.) all have a character limit of 512 for alt-texts. They should enforce it the same way as Mastodon enforces its 1,500-character limit for alt-texts, namely by truncating longer alt-texts. This is bad enough already.
However, they all have the same nasty bug that still hasn't been fixed yet AFAIK: Instead of truncating longer alt-texts, they delete them. So if you describe your image in an alt-text of more than 512 characters, users on Misskey, Sharkey & Co. will never know that your image is supposed to have an alt-text. Instead, they may think that you were too lazy to describe your image. And if you use the alt-text to explain your image in over 512 characters, this explanation will never reach users on Misskey, Sharkey & Co.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #i3 #i3wm #Disability #A11y #Accessibility -
#help #A11y a friend of mine who is blind is looking to replace his old Brother multifunction printer. He's looking for a monochrome laser multifunction printer where accessibility is good with menus, scanning and printing. And the menus could be accessible through an application. Also, controlling the printer with the Amazon echo device would be a plus but not totally necessary. Does anyone have any suggestions that I could pass along? Thanks. I'm not getting paid to do this, just trying to help someone out. Thanks.
-
#help #A11y a friend of mine who is blind is looking to replace his old Brother multifunction printer. He's looking for a monochrome laser multifunction printer where accessibility is good with menus, scanning and printing. And the menus could be accessible through an application. Also, controlling the printer with the Amazon echo device would be a plus but not totally necessary. Does anyone have any suggestions that I could pass along? Thanks. I'm not getting paid to do this, just trying to help someone out. Thanks.
-
#help #A11y a friend of mine who is blind is looking to replace his old Brother multifunction printer. He's looking for a monochrome laser multifunction printer where accessibility is good with menus, scanning and printing. And the menus could be accessible through an application. Also, controlling the printer with the Amazon echo device would be a plus but not totally necessary. Does anyone have any suggestions that I could pass along? Thanks. I'm not getting paid to do this, just trying to help someone out. Thanks.
-
#help #A11y a friend of mine who is blind is looking to replace his old Brother multifunction printer. He's looking for a monochrome laser multifunction printer where accessibility is good with menus, scanning and printing. And the menus could be accessible through an application. Also, controlling the printer with the Amazon echo device would be a plus but not totally necessary. Does anyone have any suggestions that I could pass along? Thanks. I'm not getting paid to do this, just trying to help someone out. Thanks.
-
#help #A11y a friend of mine who is blind is looking to replace his old Brother multifunction printer. He's looking for a monochrome laser multifunction printer where accessibility is good with menus, scanning and printing. And the menus could be accessible through an application. Also, controlling the printer with the Amazon echo device would be a plus but not totally necessary. Does anyone have any suggestions that I could pass along? Thanks. I'm not getting paid to do this, just trying to help someone out. Thanks.
-
@Tom Cole Only that this "little extra treat" is inaccessible and lost to all those who cannot access alt-text. And yes, there are people who cannot access alt-text.
#AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #A11y #Accessibility -
@Tom Cole Only that this "little extra treat" is inaccessible and lost to all those who cannot access alt-text. And yes, there are people who cannot access alt-text.
#AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #A11y #Accessibility -
@Tom Cole Only that this "little extra treat" is inaccessible and lost to all those who cannot access alt-text. And yes, there are people who cannot access alt-text.
#AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #A11y #Accessibility -
@Tom Cole Only that this "little extra treat" is inaccessible and lost to all those who cannot access alt-text. And yes, there are people who cannot access alt-text.
#AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #A11y #Accessibility -
@Tom Cole Only that this "little extra treat" is inaccessible and lost to all those who cannot access alt-text. And yes, there are people who cannot access alt-text.
#AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #A11y #Accessibility -
True? False?
Come find out tomorrow night, when I’ll be giving a talk on alt-text accessibility. I call it “Alt Text is the Ocean You Thought Was a Pond.” Hosted by our one and only @pdxa11yux.
https://pdxa11yux.org/events/2026/05/27/alt-text-is-the-ocean-you-thought-was-a-pond.html
Bonus: it’s in a library. Libraries are rad. My talk might be, too.
#Accessibility #A11y #Portland #PDX #Presentation #Talk #Meetup #UX #Design #FrontEnd
-
True? False?
Come find out tomorrow night, when I’ll be giving a talk on alt-text accessibility. I call it “Alt Text is the Ocean You Thought Was a Pond.” Hosted by our one and only @pdxa11yux.
https://pdxa11yux.org/events/2026/05/27/alt-text-is-the-ocean-you-thought-was-a-pond.html
Bonus: it’s in a library. Libraries are rad. My talk might be, too.
#Accessibility #A11y #Portland #PDX #Presentation #Talk #Meetup #UX #Design #FrontEnd
-
True? False?
Come find out tomorrow night, when I’ll be giving a talk on alt-text accessibility. I call it “Alt Text is the Ocean You Thought Was a Pond.” Hosted by our one and only @pdxa11yux.
https://pdxa11yux.org/events/2026/05/27/alt-text-is-the-ocean-you-thought-was-a-pond.html
Bonus: it’s in a library. Libraries are rad. My talk might be, too.
#Accessibility #A11y #Portland #PDX #Presentation #Talk #Meetup #UX #Design #FrontEnd
-
True? False?
Come find out tomorrow night, when I’ll be giving a talk on alt-text accessibility. I call it “Alt Text is the Ocean You Thought Was a Pond.” Hosted by our one and only @pdxa11yux.
https://pdxa11yux.org/events/2026/05/27/alt-text-is-the-ocean-you-thought-was-a-pond.html
Bonus: it’s in a library. Libraries are rad. My talk might be, too.
#Accessibility #A11y #Portland #PDX #Presentation #Talk #Meetup #UX #Design #FrontEnd
-
True? False?
Come find out tomorrow night, when I’ll be giving a talk on alt-text accessibility. I call it “Alt Text is the Ocean You Thought Was a Pond.” Hosted by our one and only @pdxa11yux.
https://pdxa11yux.org/events/2026/05/27/alt-text-is-the-ocean-you-thought-was-a-pond.html
Bonus: it’s in a library. Libraries are rad. My talk might be, too.
#Accessibility #A11y #Portland #PDX #Presentation #Talk #Meetup #UX #Design #FrontEnd
-
Just devoured Ashley Shew's outstanding Against Technoableism. It will change the way you see the world.
-
Today's Web Design Update: https://groups.google.com/a/d.umn.edu/g/webdev/c/ECm-y7sUnVU
Featuring @deconspray, @aardrian, @onsman, @[email protected], @matuzo, @karlgroves, @css, @matthiasott, @brucelawson, @j9t, @vitalyf, @smashingmag more.
Subscribe info: https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/webdev_listserv.html#subscribe
-
Title II Today: Compliance & Accessibility Insights for Monday, May 11, 2026 - Volume 115
By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher on behalf of Pneuma Solutions | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://title2.info/newsletter-05-11-2026/The world's leading ADA Title II Compliance publication.
🏛️ The Month's News in Title II Compliance
A Pneuma Solutions Publication
#TitleII #Title2 #ADACompliance #DigitalAccessibility #WCAG #WCAG21 #A11y #GovTech #PublicSectorEmail Subscribers: 6,869 🔢️
Social Media: 189,509 🔢️ -
Title II Today: Compliance & Accessibility Insights for Monday, May 11, 2026 - Volume 115
By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher on behalf of Pneuma Solutions | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://title2.info/newsletter-05-11-2026/The world's leading ADA Title II Compliance publication.
🏛️ The Month's News in Title II Compliance
A Pneuma Solutions Publication
#TitleII #Title2 #ADACompliance #DigitalAccessibility #WCAG #WCAG21 #A11y #GovTech #PublicSectorEmail Subscribers: 6,869 🔢️
Social Media: 189,509 🔢️ -
Title II Today: Compliance & Accessibility Insights for Monday, May 11, 2026 - Volume 115
By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher on behalf of Pneuma Solutions | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://title2.info/newsletter-05-11-2026/The world's leading ADA Title II Compliance publication.
🏛️ The Month's News in Title II Compliance
A Pneuma Solutions Publication
#TitleII #Title2 #ADACompliance #DigitalAccessibility #WCAG #WCAG21 #A11y #GovTech #PublicSectorEmail Subscribers: 6,869 🔢️
Social Media: 189,509 🔢️ -
Title II Today: Compliance & Accessibility Insights for Monday, May 11, 2026 - Volume 115
By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher on behalf of Pneuma Solutions | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://title2.info/newsletter-05-11-2026/The world's leading ADA Title II Compliance publication.
🏛️ The Month's News in Title II Compliance
A Pneuma Solutions Publication
#TitleII #Title2 #ADACompliance #DigitalAccessibility #WCAG #WCAG21 #A11y #GovTech #PublicSectorEmail Subscribers: 6,869 🔢️
Social Media: 189,509 🔢️ -
Title II Today: Compliance & Accessibility Insights for Monday, May 11, 2026 - Volume 115
By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher on behalf of Pneuma Solutions | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://title2.info/newsletter-05-11-2026/The world's leading ADA Title II Compliance publication.
🏛️ The Month's News in Title II Compliance
A Pneuma Solutions Publication
#TitleII #Title2 #ADACompliance #DigitalAccessibility #WCAG #WCAG21 #A11y #GovTech #PublicSectorEmail Subscribers: 6,869 🔢️
Social Media: 189,509 🔢️ -
Title II Today: Compliance & Accessibility Insights for Monday, May 11, 2026 - Volume 115
By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher on behalf of Pneuma Solutions | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://title2.info/newsletter-05-11-2026/The world's leading ADA Title II Compliance publication.
🏛️ The Month's News in Title II Compliance
A Pneuma Solutions Publication
#TitleII #Title2 #ADACompliance #DigitalAccessibility #WCAG #WCAG21 #A11y #GovTech #PublicSectorEmail Subscribers: 6,869 🔢️
Social Media: 189,509 🔢️ -
Title II Today: Compliance & Accessibility Insights for Monday, May 11, 2026 - Volume 115
By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher on behalf of Pneuma Solutions | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://title2.info/newsletter-05-11-2026/The world's leading ADA Title II Compliance publication.
🏛️ The Month's News in Title II Compliance
A Pneuma Solutions Publication
#TitleII #Title2 #ADACompliance #DigitalAccessibility #WCAG #WCAG21 #A11y #GovTech #PublicSectorEmail Subscribers: 6,869 🔢️
Social Media: 189,509 🔢️ -
Title II Today: Compliance & Accessibility Insights for Monday, May 11, 2026 - Volume 115
By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher on behalf of Pneuma Solutions | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://title2.info/newsletter-05-11-2026/The world's leading ADA Title II Compliance publication.
🏛️ The Month's News in Title II Compliance
A Pneuma Solutions Publication
#TitleII #Title2 #ADACompliance #DigitalAccessibility #WCAG #WCAG21 #A11y #GovTech #PublicSectorEmail Subscribers: 6,869 🔢️
Social Media: 189,509 🔢️ -
Title II Today: Compliance & Accessibility Insights for Monday, May 11, 2026 - Volume 115
By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher on behalf of Pneuma Solutions | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://title2.info/newsletter-05-11-2026/The world's leading ADA Title II Compliance publication.
🏛️ The Month's News in Title II Compliance
A Pneuma Solutions Publication
#TitleII #Title2 #ADACompliance #DigitalAccessibility #WCAG #WCAG21 #A11y #GovTech #PublicSectorEmail Subscribers: 6,869 🔢️
Social Media: 189,509 🔢️ -
Title II Today: Compliance & Accessibility Insights for Monday, May 11, 2026 - Volume 115
By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher on behalf of Pneuma Solutions | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://title2.info/newsletter-05-11-2026/The world's leading ADA Title II Compliance publication.
🏛️ The Month's News in Title II Compliance
A Pneuma Solutions Publication
#TitleII #Title2 #ADACompliance #DigitalAccessibility #WCAG #WCAG21 #A11y #GovTech #PublicSectorEmail Subscribers: 6,869 🔢️
Social Media: 189,509 🔢️ -
Title II Today: Compliance & Accessibility Insights for Monday, May 11, 2026 - Volume 115
By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher on behalf of Pneuma Solutions | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://title2.info/newsletter-05-11-2026/The world's leading ADA Title II Compliance publication.
🏛️ The Month's News in Title II Compliance
A Pneuma Solutions Publication
#TitleII #Title2 #ADACompliance #DigitalAccessibility #WCAG #WCAG21 #A11y #GovTech #PublicSectorEmail Subscribers: 6,869 🔢️
Social Media: 189,509 🔢️ -
Accessibility principle: design for the extremes, benefit the middle.
When a product works for a user with motor impairment (keyboard only), it works faster for power users too. When contrast is high enough for visually impaired users, it's readable in sunlight for everyone.
GrowthSite Lab builds with a11y defaults on every project. #A11y #UXDesign #WebDesign