5 ms·

Is it ironic that a text image is used by Twitter to bypass character limits on a post? This has to be a usability nightmare for differently abled people.

bena 5y ago
Twitter is a lot like HTML in that how it is used is so far removed from how it was designed to be used that barring radical redesigns in the protocol itself, the vast majority of the ways people use it is getting around the inherent limitations of the system.
jakear 5y ago
The alt text has the full contents.
- d0mine 5y ago
  the texts differ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984388
steve_adams_86 5y ago
There is decent alt text on the image, but I can’t speak to how well Twitter works with a screen reader in order to access it.
- manquer 5y ago
  However the Alt text version is slightly different from the posted one , so not really good substitute.
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    There's no requirement or inherent value in them being identical. They should provide as much of the same essential information as possible, and in this case they do. It's reasonable for the main image to include more non-essential data or aesthetic flourishes than the alt, which again is the case here. There are definitely accessibility issues with using images as a text medium, mainly that the poster has to be aware of the accessibility issues and specifically choose to alleviate them. But that was done here.
    - manquer 5y ago
      For an actual image of an object that makes sense, but for image of just text I would expect it to match, there is lot of reading in between the lines , exact words used are important and this is a statement that will influence the stock price. We are at the stage where business critical market moving press releases are now made on twitter as an image by twitter’s ceo because twitter won’t support longer text, two days after twitter deployed an major update to alt text [1] . [1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/07/twitter-alt-text-badge-image-description/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/07/twitter-alt-text-badge-ima...
- yreg 5y ago
  Is this done automatically by Twitter? Can the user set their own alt?
  - rchaud 5y ago
    Yes, users can set their own alt text for Images.
gorwell 5y ago
Differently abled?
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
  Go nitpick somewhere else.
  - selfmodruntime 5y ago
    You can say „disabled“ just fine. I have a disability and I never met someone who preferred differently abled. It‘s not a slur (yet)
    - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
      Sure I’ll take that on board. I try and live with a ‘don’t be an asshole’ mantra but it’s fairly hard to navigate correctness on terms I don’t frequently use. I would assume that in almost all scenarios, incorrect but good intent probably indicate innocent mistakes. No offence was intended though (;
  - coolso 5y ago
    Pretty sure the people who use terms like “differently abled”, “LatinX”, “they/them” etc., are the ones forcing their nitpicks on everyone else.
    - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
      Great alt right bait there mate.
  - E4YomzYIN5YEBKe 5y ago
    Is the term nitpick offensive to nitwits?
jazzyjackson 5y ago
Besides the character limit, there's an embarrassing number of reasons people might share screenshots of tweets: - to "retweet" without notifying the person and being linked to as a "quote tweet" on the OP - to share a post in a controversial context where many people are blocked by the tweeter in question (if you're blocked by someone, you can't read their tweets) - to share a post you expect will be deleted shortly - to screengrab a couple of posts that make up necessary context and wouldn't make sense if retweeted on their own To your point about people using screenreaders etc, it seems to me that it would be fairly trivial (cputime aside) to OCR tweets and automatically apply alt-text, but instead they rely on the uploader to enter it manually.
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
  Sure, but not everybody who is vision impaired is fully blind. in some situations they don’t use ocr or alt text, because sane websites can leverage zoom functions. Think: elderly people on iPhones, who may be able to pinch zoom if they’re technical understanding permits it.

bena 5y ago

Twitter is a lot like HTML in that how it is used is so far removed from how it was designed to be used that barring radical redesigns in the protocol itself, the vast majority of the ways people use it is getting around the inherent limitations of the system.

jakear 5y ago

The alt text has the full contents.

d0mine 5y ago
the texts differ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984388

steve_adams_86 5y ago

There is decent alt text on the image, but I can’t speak to how well Twitter works with a screen reader in order to access it.

manquer 5y ago
However the Alt text version is slightly different from the posted one , so not really good substitute.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  There's no requirement or inherent value in them being identical. They should provide as much of the same essential information as possible, and in this case they do. It's reasonable for the main image to include more non-essential data or aesthetic flourishes than the alt, which again is the case here. There are definitely accessibility issues with using images as a text medium, mainly that the poster has to be aware of the accessibility issues and specifically choose to alleviate them. But that was done here.
  - manquer 5y ago
    For an actual image of an object that makes sense, but for image of just text I would expect it to match, there is lot of reading in between the lines , exact words used are important and this is a statement that will influence the stock price. We are at the stage where business critical market moving press releases are now made on twitter as an image by twitter’s ceo because twitter won’t support longer text, two days after twitter deployed an major update to alt text [1] . [1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/07/twitter-alt-text-badge-image-description/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/07/twitter-alt-text-badge-ima...
yreg 5y ago
Is this done automatically by Twitter? Can the user set their own alt?
- rchaud 5y ago
  Yes, users can set their own alt text for Images.

gorwell 5y ago

Differently abled?

hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
Go nitpick somewhere else.
- selfmodruntime 5y ago
  You can say „disabled“ just fine. I have a disability and I never met someone who preferred differently abled. It‘s not a slur (yet)
  - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
    Sure I’ll take that on board. I try and live with a ‘don’t be an asshole’ mantra but it’s fairly hard to navigate correctness on terms I don’t frequently use. I would assume that in almost all scenarios, incorrect but good intent probably indicate innocent mistakes. No offence was intended though (;
- coolso 5y ago
  Pretty sure the people who use terms like “differently abled”, “LatinX”, “they/them” etc., are the ones forcing their nitpicks on everyone else.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
    Great alt right bait there mate.
- E4YomzYIN5YEBKe 5y ago
  Is the term nitpick offensive to nitwits?

jazzyjackson 5y ago

Besides the character limit, there's an embarrassing number of reasons people might share screenshots of tweets: - to "retweet" without notifying the person and being linked to as a "quote tweet" on the OP - to share a post in a controversial context where many people are blocked by the tweeter in question (if you're blocked by someone, you can't read their tweets) - to share a post you expect will be deleted shortly - to screengrab a couple of posts that make up necessary context and wouldn't make sense if retweeted on their own To your point about people using screenreaders etc, it seems to me that it would be fairly trivial (cputime aside) to OCR tweets and automatically apply alt-text, but instead they rely on the uploader to enter it manually.

hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
Sure, but not everybody who is vision impaired is fully blind. in some situations they don’t use ocr or alt text, because sane websites can leverage zoom functions. Think: elderly people on iPhones, who may be able to pinch zoom if they’re technical understanding permits it.