FAQ
What are image descriptions? And why are you writing them?
Image descriptions are exactly what they sound like: the details and content of an image transcribed into words. There are many people--including those who are blind, visually impaired, or dyslexic--who use screenreaders, which reads the text on their device aloud to them. Since a screenreader doesn't know what the content of an image is, it'll say "image" and move on. By writing image descriptions, I'm allowing people who use screenreaders to "see" images.
Do image descriptions only benefit people who use screenreaders?
No! Image descriptions are helpful to everyone. They can be used to quickly identify (for example) if the image is a meme, who the person in the image is, what fandom it's from, where the image was taken, etc. They can also be used to read small/handwritten text for those who might not be able to read text on images. They can also be incredibly helpful if your wifi is slow and you want to know what an image is!
Why not put image descriptions in alt text?
While image descriptions in alt text do have benefits, they render accessibility inaccessible. Since people who use screenreaders aren't the only people who use ids (see the examples I listed above), all of those benefits are rendered null. If you don't use a screenreader, there's no way to access the image description that's been written in the alt text. And as the point of writing ids is to improve accessibility, it's contradictory.
I don't know how to write an image description. Can you help me?
Of course! Feel free to reach out to me either through asks or dms, and I'll help you write one. If you have a post that you would like described, you can send that to me directly, as well!