Hi,
Passing along the following article. Some may be interested.
   Jeanne

Misuse of Twitter’s Alt Text Feature Draws Criticism From
Accessibility Advocates
https://www.wsj.com/articles/misuse-of-twitters-alt-text-feature-draws-criticism-from-accessibility-advocates-11657879200


By Katie Deighton
July 15, 2022 6:00 am ET


Twitter is testing pop-ups that remind users to add appropriate
Twitter introduced alt text in 2016 and made the image descriptions
readable to all of its users earlier this year.


When the National Aeronautics and Space Administration uploaded the
first photo of the early universe from its James Webb telescope to
Twitter, it included a highly detailed description of the deep-field
snapshot.
“Most stars appear blue, and are sometimes as large as more distant
galaxies that appear next to them,” read one portion of the 126-word
description posted by NASA on Monday. “A very bright star is just
above and left of center. It has eight bright blue, long diffraction
spikes.”

NASA's image description has been hailed by some accessibility
advocates as an example of alt text written correctly.

The description was provided as alt text, a feature originally
designed to let blind and low-vision people fully understand the
contents of images through text that can be read by screen-reader
technology. Accessibility advocates were delighted. NASA’s alt text
was thoughtful and evocative, but most important did its job of
capturing an image fully with words to make it accessible to all.
Very few accounts manage to do that, they say.
Since Twitter expanded its alt text display option to all users in
April, misuse of the feature has been rife, frustrating those who use
screen readers.
“It’s like, ‘Here’s a thing that disabled people use, let’s see how we
can misuse it to benefit people who don’t need it,’” said Katie
Durden, a blind software developer and accessibility activist who has
for years publicly called on Twitter to improve the design of its alt
text feature.
Blind and visually impaired social-media users have long had to deal
with the sometimes inaccurate, frequently sparse, automatically
generated alt text offered by platforms such as Meta Platforms Inc.’s
Facebook and Instagram, as well as web images that don’t include any
alt text at all.
Now they’ve been dealt a new issue: Rather than describing images,
some individuals and corporate Twitter accounts have used the alt text
field to add hyperlinks, caption credits and source citations, without
any information that would help a blind or low-vision person
understand the image.
Others have used alt text as a place to hide jokes, supplementary
information or alternative captions from the main timeline. One
account used the alt text field to publish the address of a
politician, a trolling tactic known as doxing.
The official account of Manchester United Football Club was admonished
by a number of social media users for posting a photo of the player
Juan Mata with the alt text, “Who’s the greatest player in the Premier
League? It’s you Juan Juan Juan…” The account later deleted the tweet.
Microsoft Corp. , which has done much to improve the accessibility of
its own products, last month promoted the use of alt text—as well as
its Edge browser’s accessibility features—with a social-media campaign
called #AltTextAddsMore. Some accessibility advocates said the alt
text depicted in the campaign was improper, in some instances for
failing to adequately describe the picture, in others for providing
quippy bits of extra information not related to the image.
A Microsoft spokeswoman said that while the goal of the campaign was
to drive awareness of the alt text feature, its execution fell short.
“We heard the feedback and take it seriously,” she said.
Designing with rigor
Twitter first let users add alt text to their images in 2016, but
originally only users with screen readers could access the text. That
meant the feature remained largely hidden from many people, which in
turn meant that for years only a small number of images were uploaded
with alt text attached, rendering many posts inaccessible to blind and
low-sighted people.

The company this year made alt text visible to all users to help boost
usage, adding “ALT” badges to images that are posted with
descriptions. Clicking the badge reveals the alt text.
Some accessibility advocates said they are happy that Twitter made the
feature widely available, but that the platform bungled the roll out
by failing to explain the feature’s primary purpose clearly.
“While the visibility of the alt text tag is useful, it does raise
questions about who the visibility is for,” said Liz Jackson, a
founding member of the Disabled List, an organization that advocates
for structural changes in design.
Large companies often introduce accessibility features without
examining their design as rigorously as they would for other products
and can ignore or dismiss disabled users who bring them suggestions
directly, according to Ms. Jackson, who identifies as a disabled
person.
“The reason for that lack of rigor is because audiences have been
trained to feel good about anything that gets the accessibility
label,” she said. “Twitter needs to bring in the people who are
questioning them, because their questions are meaty and valid.”
A spokeswoman for Twitter said that the company is always open to
comments and suggestions and regularly gathers feedback from people
with disabilities to help improve products.
“We recognize there is still a lot more work to do in this space,” she said.

Twitter this week began testing a setting that prompts users to add
alt text when they post an image.
The company said Wednesday that it has begun testing a new setting
that reminds people to write a description when they tweet an image—a
feature accessibility advocates have campaigned for. The pop-up
explains that alt text “makes Twitter accessible to people with
disabilities, and everyone who wants more context.”
Users frustrated by alt-text misuse would like Twitter to go further.
Veronica Lewis, who has low vision and writes about assistive
technology on her website Veronica With Four Eyes, said she would like
to see a way for Twitter users to flag an image for inaccurate or
inappropriate alt text, as well as the ability for users to add alt
text to images they have already posted.
Katie Durden, who uses nongendered pronouns, said they have asked for
the character limit on alt text to be raised substantially beyond
1,000 characters to permit better descriptions. They have for years
also lobbied Twitter for a reminder mechanism similar to the one
announced today, they said.
“There’s definitely a group of people who don’t care about
accessibility, but the vast, vast majority of people just don’t know
about it,” they said. “If they knew, they would be better. Maybe not
perfect, but better.”


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