Thread by @PatrickMGarvin

For journalists covering the Ukraine news: A lot of this story involves visuals, like timelines of events, maps, and photos of scenes unfolding. That is all useful information that helps explain complex topics. All of those images need alt text. All of them.

Thread 🧵1/x

Please don't hide that info from people who cannot see it, or from people who will be able to better process it by listening to it while looking at it, too. If you add the information to alt text, people using screen readers will be able to get the same information.

Twitter makes it possible for you to add alt text to the images you tweet. If you need a reminder, or never knew this, then this link has the details for you.

help.twitter.com/en/using-twitt…

Whether you're tweeting out from your organization's account or your personal one doesn't matter. If an image doesn't have alt text, a person using a screen reader is left out. You're leaving people out, whether you're doing it from your professional or personal account.

Many journalists share screen grabs of portions of text from the articles they sure. When they do, hey should add alt text. Otherwise, a person using a screen reader is left out. These journalists are leaving people out, whether it's from a professional or personal account.

We've been in a pandemic for two years, during which many charts, maps, and images have been shared without consideration as to how blind or low-vision people will get that information. We can't change the past. Going forward, though, remember to add alt text.

I'll reiterate: If an image doesn't have alt text, a person using a screen reader is left out. You're leaving people out, whether you're doing it from your professional or personal account. The result is the same: someone will feel left out, because they were indeed left out.

The results can be disastrous and have huge consequences, as this thread from Chancey Fleet describes:

https://twitter.com/chanceyfleet/status/1317266205959507968

To be sure, I know that many people don't know about alt text because they were never trained on that. And the people who trained them at their jobs were not trained on that. Several accessibility-minded folks are looking to change that and train people, one at a time if need be.

And if you're looking for more resources, then do I have you covered!

https://twitter.com/PatrickMGarvin/status/1478071507549147138

For all the people sharing and liking this tweet, thank you for getting the word out! And even if you're not a journalist, the message still stands: we all need to add alt text to our images on social media, regardless of our professions. 🤓

And for journalists who want a starting place for how to think about alt text, I have written a guide for @source about this very topic!
#altText
#a11y
#PartyLikeAJournalist

source.opennews.org/articles/how-w…

And here is more good food for thought on this, from @HashtagHeyAlexa: "If your organization is going to release a statement about Ukraine on social media, please don’t do it via a graphic with three paragraphs of copy on it and no alt text."

https://twitter.com/HashtagHeyAlexa/status/1497396713920815108