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: .
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:
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.
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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.
An excellent suggestion! I hope you don’t mind, but I went ahead and created a feature request for this just now: lemmy-ui#1759
Hmmm seems like the text doesn’t show up on Jerboa
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.
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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!
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.
No worries! I never really considered blind people browsing apps, I only became aware of the technical details since the API changes at reddit, so it’s still far from a reflex to think about.
Thanks for pointing it out though.
Follow up: did I do it correctly here?
This message is officially approved by RBlind. Thank you.
You are all making the open web a better place.
This is wonderful advice, it should be in all introduction material.
Very nice, thanks for the write up!
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?
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.
Is there a way to embed the actual image itself and not have to rely on a third party like Imgur?
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
And then is there a way to add alt text to that uploaded image?
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
it just had a link for the newly uploaded photo.
Question for Jerboa users: how do you zoom in on one of these comment images? They’re frequently too small to read.
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.
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.
I wish you could post gifs this way.
You can though?
It doesn’t play for me in jerboa
Connect and Liftoff are better than Jerboa atm, try those
description is accurate👍
Sweet, I can actually read the alt text by long-pressing the image. This opens up a whole new avenue for good caption gags.
