#<- geniunely so sorry about how long that is please do ask for clarification or a summary if you need. whoops | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

teatual · 4 months

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hi! hope this is an alright question to ask, but i really really wanted to start adding IDs to my posts and stuff! im worried my IDs that ive done before are too long and detailed, so do you have any tips for ID writing? thank you in advance if you answer this!! =^.^=

QUESTIONS OF LOVE AND JOY

Tbh the biggest bit of advice I can give to anyone wanting to write IDs is that literally any ID is better than no ID even if you think it's too long. Genuinely just give it a shot and the more you do it the more you'll get a feel for it, just like any other skill!

If it's my own post, I start by identifying the type of image ("a screenshot of", "fanart of", "original character art of"), then identify the subject, then a quick verb or adjective about the subject. So

[ID: (image type) of (subject). (Subject) is (adjective and/or verb). End ID]

Yoinking my pfp: [ID: a PNG (image type) of a sticker sheet (subject) of holographic stars, moons and suns (adjective!). End ID]

Everyone who uses IDs will have different preferences for them. U could ask 20 people who require IDs for images about them and get 20 different answers. AFAIK the general consensus is that many prefer brief IDs because screen readers take yonks to read it out? But you do want to make sure you don't miss out relevant context.

IME the most accessible thing to do is write one directly under the original post (NO read more) and in plain text. small text (small text) or coloured text (coloured text) might or might not be picked up by screen readers but is gonna be difficult to read for many people with low vision, which is the main demographic IDs are used for.

uhh what else. There's a difference between an ID (image description under the post) and ALT text (embedded in the html of the image) and there's no single agreement on which is better (see paragraph 2) but sometimes a screen reader will skip the whole post if there's an image with no ALT text. Good practice is to put a very brief (1-2 sentences) in ALT text and the fuller ID under the post, like how my mutual's done it here.

There's more i could probably say but this is quite long whoops so linking some more posts about them for you here, here, here and here!

Also also if you want to make a huge difference to accessibility on your blog you can search through the notes of a post to see if there's already one (copy and paste it to your version if you want a different reblog chain! the writer won't mind!) and tag image posts with no ID as #undescribed or equivalent.

#💌#parbelle-time #long post #<- geniunely so sorry about how long that is please do ask for clarification or a summary if you need. whoops #accessibility #online accessibility #image descriptions #but YEAH THANK YOU FOR ASKING AND BEING INTERESTED MWAH

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