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A field to add a serious alt text to each photo #1612
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adam (Adam Wojcieszonek)
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Reference: adam/Piwigo#1612
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Would it be possible to add an alt-text field to each photo? It would be nice if my blind friends could follow along as well.
The alt attribute is used by people who depend on a screenreader. It reads out a description of what you can see on an image, if that description is provided.
A description could be something like "A red cat on a news paper on a table". This is something else that the title of an image, which, in this case could be: "Go away, cat!" As you can see, the title has a different function than the alt-text. In this case they complement each other. And even now, where I didn’t provide the image of that cat, you can still imagine what it looks like. That’s the power of the alt-attribute.
Right now, Piwigo uses the title field to fill the alt attribute. This means that the title will be read out twice if you use a screen reader. Once when you hear the alt attribute, and then again when the title is read out. Hearing your screenreader say something like "Image: Go away, cat! Title: Go away, cat!" is in no way comparable to "Image: A red cat on a newspaper on a table. Title: Go away, cat!"
But it even gets a bit worse: if no title is added (which is by default), the alt text is the name of the image file, with its extension. Which in the above example where we see a red can on a table, would result in a blind person hearing "Image: DSC01790.JPG". This is not considered to be good UX since it really has nothing to do with a red cat on a newspaper on a table.
It would therefore be fantastic if it was possible to add an extra alt-text field to the single image edit mode. When this alt-text-field is filled, it will show up in the alt-attribute, and when it is left empty, the alt attribute is left empty as well, which is better than filling it with the file name, or a redundant title. (it should be left empty, not removed. If you remove the alt attribute from the image, the file name will be read out…)
It would then be very helpful for many people if a good explanation was added next to this field, so that people would start to use it properly. And yes, I have taught photographers who don’t know anything about the web about alt-text, and the all use it and they even like it (-:
Following!