Why YSK: If you want to make Lemmy a more accessible place for all, you need to know how to add labels (aka: “alt text”) to embedded images
As many of you are already aware, you can embed images in comments using the following markdown: .
That works, but the image will be left unlabeled which leaves screenreader users out of the conversation. This may seem like a theoretical problem, but it’s not – Lemmy already has an active blind community: https://rblind.com/
So, here’s what you can do to add labels when embedding images:
That’s it! Any text within the [] becomes “alt text”, which is what screenreaders use for describing images. It’s a small thing, but it makes a world of difference.
Remember: Reddit took something from many of us here. For some, it was a mobile app. For others, it was the ability to operate their own communities. Comment with solidarity; use alt-text.
Great advice! It’s pretty easy to just double paste the URL into both spots.
Indeed, but just FYI: doing this is actually even worse than leaving a completely empty alt-text!
Why? Because some browsers have experimental support for AI-generated alt-text. If an image has no alt-text, it’ll try to generate one, but only if the alt text is empty. This feature will probably become more common in the future, so please try to refrain from putting non-descriptive stuff in the alt-text area.
You shouldn’t do that. That’s not gonna help screen readers and in fact will just waste their time trying to read off a URL because it thinks it’s describing the image. The alt text is intended to be human readable.