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But before I get started, I want to state that a lot of this could potentially be the judgement call of the poster. Furthermore, I am speaking for myself here, and only me. I never have, and never will, claim to speak for the #disability or #A11y community at large. You'll undoubtedly encounter blind people with different preferences for #AltText, and it's up to you to adapt as best you can. With all that said, let's begin!

First, what is AltText? Put simply, it is text, attached to an image, which describes it for those who use screen reading software like #NVDA (Non-visual desktop access https://www.nvaccess.org/) or #JAWS for #Windows (Job Access With Speech https://www.freedomscientific.com/products/software/jaws/)

You may be wondering why you should use it. There's no *requirement* that you do. However, if you want to reach the most people possible and want them to engage with you, you must learn to include the disabled in your conversation starters. We, as a community, are too often overlooked in areas ranging from the physical design of buildings, to the production of #Youtube videos and everything in between. For some of us, that has bred a hostile attitude or the feeling that we are not welcome.

There are tools that *attempt* to describe images for us. For instance, #Facebook tries to use AI to generate #AltText. But it's vague at best. As an example, an image of a cat sitting on a chair looking over at a potted plant in the corner might be translated to our screen readers like this. "Image may contain cat, chair, houseplant." As you read that description over, does that leave you with a vivid picture? Or does it leave you dissatisfied, with questions about what you're reading?

So now that you know what #AltText is and what can make it bad, you're probably wondering what makes it good. And for this, I'm going to use a series of images with the generous permission of their original poster. See here:
https://mindly.social/@skylestia/109362970528091973
I'd like to express my gratitude and appreciation to @skylestia for allowing me to use material she posted for the purposes of this demo.

What do these images do well?
They provide the essential clues here that any person looking at them would be drawn to immediately. For instance, the trending topics from the second photo are spelled out clearly. Yes, other elements might be ignored, but you would likely ignore them too. The third image gives us a clear depiction of the meme. It identifies the subject, what they're doing and the relevant text.

That's not to say they couldn't be improved, as we can always improve. But these descriptions provide more than enough information for me to walk away with the context that's important to the original post the user nade. With that information, I can then engage in a conversation where otherwise, I may not have been able to.

But that's a lot of information. Let's refer to my example earlier about the cat sitting in a chair and try to come up with a description for the post. To do that, we'll ask a few basic questions.
1. What is the subject of the photo/what is my attention immediately being drawn to?
In this case, my attention is likely being drawn to the cat. So we describe it like this.
An image of a cat with orange fur.

Alright. So we've described the subject. Now onto the next step.
2. Where is the subject/what is it doing?
What is happening in a photo is just as important as the photo itself. So let's expand on it from here.
As I said before
An image of a cat with orange fur, sitting in a black armchair. It's looking away from the camera, towards a potted minirose in the corner of the room.
And there! You now have a much more vivid picture in your head, and can engage with the person who sent out the photo.

With all that being said, let's go over what #AltText is not.
It isn't meant to provide information that someone wouldn't be able to gleme on their own by looking at it, unless there are previous instances in which this information has been presented.
For example:
An image of Fluffy, a cat with orange fur, sitting in a black armchair. He's looking away from the camera, towards a potted minirose in the corner of the room he knocked over a few minutes earlier.

Here, it's highly possible our fictional cat Fluffy has been referenced in our fictional photographer's bio. In this case, using his name in the photo is fine since although Fluffy may not have a nametag on, the poster has discussed him elsewhere. However, you as the viewer would not be able to tell Fluffy had knocked over the plant a few minutes ago, assuming the area was cleaned afterwards. Therefore, that's extra information that doesn't enhance the visual.

AltText is also not meant to be a conduit for humor. What I mean by this is that while you can write in a humorous manner to describe your photo, AltText itself should not be used to make joking statements as amusing as they may be. Blend the humor in with the description, but do not use the description to convey the joke.

Do not stuff your AltText with keywords, just for the sake of increasing its visibility on search engines like #DuckDuckGo. It is there to help people visualize, not to boost traffic to your profile because someone searched for pictures of cats online.
Remember, focus on the what, not the how or why.

I hope you've found this thread helpful. Please boost it so that others may learn how to write good #AltText like I've tried to teach you. And if you have any questions, please send them my way. Please also consider making them public, so that others who may have the same questions as you can learn from the responses they see here. I will update this thread with more information/examples if they're asked for.

@JesseF8693 Thank you for putting the thread together. Where I've been taught, in web design as well as online, that it's especially important to use alt text, is when the image contains important information, including words, such as many memes, graphs, poems or quotes posted as images or as part of images. First, consider a better alternative if there's a lot of text, but second, make sure to include the actual words in the image so everyone has access to that information.

@JohannasGarden Including the exact wording is critical, yep. But it's also very helpful to use #AltText for even casual photos. Some of us may never have seen a sunset, for instance. So that helps us feel in a sense like maybe, we have. It gives us a way to engage we wouldn't have, especially given everything is so visual these days.

@JesseF8693 I love this point, and especially on social media, where we're more personal and often follow like-minded people, it can deepen the relationships as well. It tells you something about how this person you follow sees and describes a sunset, and why they wanted to post it.

@Kozmo #AltText is a text-based description which clearly describes a photo, as if you were telling someone over the phone instead of them seeing it. You can generally attach it to an image by clicking an edit or "+" button after you've selected the image to upload.

@JesseF8693 thanks; I'll look for that. So this is not the same as writing a description in the "what's on your mind" box of the toot, right?

@mcfrontrun The trouble with adding extra to #AltText is that in an ironic way, you're then potentially giving those who might not look at it the lesser experience as they can only see what the image is, and not the joke it might be trying to make.
For me personally, I'm alright with descriptions of abstract art describing what the artist is trying to convey on top of what the image might look like.

@JesseF8693 Thanks for responding, Sometimes that is my intended purpose for using adding extra to the alt text, For example an acrostic or cipher within the text with the clue Or key to decrypt within an image's alt text. Most people don't consider checking alt text, and if you're making a puzzle or riddle That can Be a way to hide a clue in plain sight. (no offense) Emojis, Do they distract Or is the explanation Given adequate to Understand their meaning?

@mcfrontrun Sorry, this reply slipped through the cracks. In most cases, the emoji has a programmed word based equivalent, based off the unicode standard. Custom Mastodon emojis don't, though. They essentially read as blank. Silent.

@EllieK I'm glad you found it helpful! You're more than welcome to stick around, if you like.

@JesseF8693

I will stick around and if, by chance, you see a photo of mine with poor, insufficient or confusing Alt text, please let me know.

@andyw350 I'm sorry for the late reply. As I understand it, if you're not using a screen reader you have to select the image before the #AltText will appear. So until you do there's no way of knowing if it's available.