this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
944 points (97.8% liked)

Science Memes

11404 readers
2208 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] DillyDaily 54 points 2 months ago (11 children)

As a visually impaired person on the internet. YES! welcome to our world!

You're lucky enough to get an image description that helpfully describes the image.

That description rarely tells you if it's AI generated, that's if the description writer even knows themselves.

Everyone in the comments saying "look at the hands, that's AI generated", and I'm sitting here thinking, I just have to trust the discussion, because that image, just like every other image I've ever seen, is hard to fully decipher visually, let alone look for evidence of AI.

[–] thirteene 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've never seen a good answer to this in accessibility guides, would you mind making a recommendation? Is there any preferred alt text for something like:

  • "clarification image with an arrow pointing at object"
  • "Picture of a butt selfie, it's completely black"
  • "Picture of a table with nothing on it"
  • "example of lens flare shown from camera"
  • "N/A" dangerous

Sometimes an image is clearly only useful as a visual aid, I feel like "" (exluding it) makes people feel like they are missing the joke. But given it's an accessibility tool; unneeded details may waste your time.

[–] DillyDaily 2 points 2 months ago

I guess my question would be, why do you need the picture as a visual aid, is the accompanying body text confusing without that visual aid? and if so, by having no alt text, you accept that you will leave VI people confused and only sighted people will have the clarification needed.

If your including a picture of a table with nothing on it, there's a reason, so yes, that alt text is perfectly reasonable.

Personally I wish there was a way to enable two types of alt text on images, for long and quick context.

Because I understand your concern about unnecessary detail, if I'm in a rush "a table with nothing on it" will do for quicker context, but there are times when it's appropriate to go much deeper, "a picture of a hard wood rustic coffee table, taken from a high angle, natural sunlight, there are no objects on the table."

load more comments (9 replies)