In a couple of different places on Mastodon this week I’ve seen people saying something to the effect of “what does visible alt text matter, it’s for screen readers.”
Here are just a few scenarios why people might want to view alt text visually:
1. “I made the post and I want to double check the alt text I wrote.”
2. “I did not make the post but I want to learn how other people write alt text so I can write better descriptions.”
3. “I’m having trouble making sense of the image but I think a written description would help.”
4. “My vision is enough to read text at my preferred font size but not in a tiny screenshot with jpeg compression.”
5. “This is what works best for me because of reasons I don’t want to get into.”
Accessibility is for everyone. Try not to make assumptions.
@arjache I've found the alt text particularly useful for times when people are posting pictures of text in languages I don't know (which is basically all of them). Having the alt text of the text in the photo makes it much easier (at least for me personally) to translate that text.
@mike
Great point! It's true, Google Lens or similar OCR can do that for you, but sometimes it misses the point. The person posting that image on the other hand usually (e.g. if it's something funny) does "get the joke" and knows what to emphasize to make it funny for person speaking different language.
@arjache
