Practice Writing Alt Text For Media

2-stage session which I meant to run live. Now seeing how to run it async possibly (or leaving the template here in case I/someone else want to run it somewhere else).

Hosted by Amélie

Also, acknowledgement that we all have varying degree of skills and time/energy, so it's not always possible to write detailed alt text. The examples below came into my feed and I'm grateful the people posted them.

Look

Look at existing posts with varying degrees of alt text:

• example 1
• example 2
• example 3a and 3b
• example 4
• example 5
• example 6a and 6b

For each of the above, discuss how well the alt text represent the content of the picture. What could we add/change?

--> add comments here!

Practice

First, each folk picks a picture they like (without showing it to others) and write the alt-text.

In turn (for those who want/can): without revealing the picture, the author reads their alt-text.

• listeners imagine what the picture looks like
• optional: listeners draw what they think the picture looks like?
• then the author reveals the picture.
• then we discuss how different one is from the other! And possibly how to change the alt-text.

--> insert your alt text here and a link to the picture. Then other folks can leave comments.

Context

This is why I picked those particular examples (other folks might have other interpretations, or better examples! Please add them :) )

• example 1 is static text, always the same for all pictures (it's from a bot account)
• example 2 is very short text: describes the main content only
• examples 3a and 3b give some details, using terms that might not be common knowledge (if you don't know what they mean, it's hard to "see" the picture)
• example 4 gives good details about how the picture is organised, and mentions which colours are used
• example 5 mentions which point of view the picture is taken from, and what effect that has