#how to ID

[keplercryptids]

i often refer my friends to your blog when they need help with alt text and have some questions abt it so i figured youre someone good to ask about it :")

when i look up resources on google it always tells me to keep its as breif as possible and a couple sentences max and when i look on tumblr everyone seems to guide people into writing way more wordy alt text and im just kinda confused on what to do 🫠 i often feel like my descriptions on my art are too long and would be annoying to listen to with a screen reader

something else thats been bugging me to hell and back too and ties into the what articles say vs what tumblr says is how to write alt text for images with a lot of information, if i were to post like a doodle sheet or anything else with several different drawings in one image should i describe every single one of them or just write something like "several doodles of character doing different things"?

i understand alt text and image description are two different concepts, guides on google guide me more towards alt text and guides on tumblr guide me towards image descriptions i feel like i should find a balance but i dont know where that balance would be TT

hi!

alt text and image descriptions are not necessarily distinct things: alt text = image descriptions that show up in the alt text of an image, to be automatically read aloud by screen readers. alt text is often brief, but i think the way a lot of articles talk about alt text is to appeal to a certain audience - businesses and web developers, etc - and so the stress on brevity makes sense. you don't want to bog people down in a lot of detail if you're trying to sell them stuff, etc.

IMO, describing art is different. i don't think blind and low vision folks should be universally excluded from detailed descriptions of art. that's kind of a massive bummer to think about, actually.

and that's not to say that image descriptions shouldn't be brief. it depends. i always hesitate to give hard and fast rules for descriptions, because 1. blind and low vision folks have individual preferences just like everybody else, and 2. CONTEXT is the most important thing when it comes to image descriptions. rules on what should always be included in a description sometimes fall flat because the context is what matters most.

you should strive for a certain amount of brevity while making sure you include the proper context. by that i mean, for example, sometimes the colors in a piece are there to invoke a certain mood, and so you can sum up the mood of a piece (cheerful, cold, dark, dreamy etc) without listing every color. sometimes the poses of a doodle sheet are relevant, contextually, to whatever the image/post is about, and sometimes they're not.

image descriptions are a judgment call, and there isn't (and can't be!) one universally "correct" way to write them. just do your best and focus on what is contextually important, without getting bogged down in excess irrelevant detail, and you'll probably be in a good spot.

[identifying-ladybugs-in-posts]

Harmonia axyridis, Asian lady beetle

Adalia decempunctata, 10-spotted ladybird

Also: please do not make it a mission to kill ANY type of ladybug on sight!

[antennatoheaven]

[pumpkinhrat]

[noka-exe]

Damian Wayne comes across a classic christmas carol known well among the children of gotham… pt [1/?]

[yeepof]

Local PHD student at wizard school HARRASSED!! FOR SHAME!!

[identifying-ladybugs-in-posts]

Interesting example of the original poster confusing one of the Spotless Lady Beetles (Cycloneda) with a lady beetle that just happens to be spotless (in this case a Harmonia)

[bamsara]

thinking about them as mugs

[inkskinned]

okay is she being actually immature or is it just a woman over 30 expressing a human experience you find to be immature.

like yeah. at certain ages... let shit go. im not defending the real immature shit. im not defending the karen you're picturing. i worked in retail i hate those people too. (once somebody got mad at me because she didn't like how our winter window decor was a snowman smoking a pipe. i wish i was joking).

but men at 57 will write books about how 17 year old girls are soooo sexy. they will invent worlds where women have to be naked for "armor reasons." they will write songs that treat women as objects. people rush to defend them. meanwhile a woman at 35 will be like "heartbreak is hard, actually" or "i feel betrayed by a friend" or "i am struggling with something emotionally." immediately people will say stuff like this woman is 35 by the way. by the way this woman is SO OLD to be experiencing this. BY THE WAY.

im 31, almost 32. the other day a poet was blasted online because at her "big age", she had written a poem about feeling unloved. top comment was "this woman is 29 by the way." this woman is too old to still be useful, by the way. she has to behave better . maybe if she was a good wife and mother she could stop existing loudly, and the story could continue on without her. this woman has served her purpose, by the way. she's so cringe, by the way. at 29 - so old! - she still hasn't figured out that her existence should be one of shame.

[andstuffsketches]

girl who lives in a cave

[barghest-land]

working on early horses, i wanted to do a quick sketch to show how small Eohippus was compared to an extant horse (this one is about 150cm tall). as you can see, it wasn't big at all. a perfect little lap horse :)

[wtfforged]

mold growth

[evenlyevi]

Happy pride! I offer you some bunnies on cakes!! 🌈

[hinamie]

surprise it's yuri!!!in 2024

[yb-cringe]

something insanely meta about jack and tommy chatting about how it all sucked everything sucked and it was a mess and it hurt and no theyd never wanna go back but.. they miss it sometimes. to the way things were and how they felt. sometimes you just wanna go back

[artsymeeshee]

a lil’ comfort hug