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Re: software for alt text?

for

From: Karl Brown
Date: Feb 6, 2017 8:29AM

I'd second what Sarah said.

Part of having a text alternative is knowing whether the text serves
the *equivalent
purpose* to the non-text content (image, etc.). A machine-based solution
isn't yet at a point where it knows what the purpose behind the non-text
content is all the time, so having a human check over things is still the
best option.

Taking images as an example, all I use a tool for is to catch images that
are missing their *alt attribute*. When I see those I know to check the
content around the images to see if there's an alternative there (and also
know to highlight that an alt attribute needs adding, whether we add text
to the attribute or not). I'll then manually check every image that *does* have
an alt attribute to make sure it makes sense for the purpose of the image.
I wouldn't trust a machine or software to do that kind of nuanced check,
yet.

On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 2:48 PM, Bourne, Sarah (MASSIT) <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Karthik,
>
> If there is any software out there that says it does this, I wouldn't
> trust it. The computing power and artificial intelligence Facebook uses is
> not something that would fit in most development environments - and even
> then, it's not perfect.
>
> Alternative text is content, and in almost every case, should be provided
> by the person who wrote the rest of the text on the page. It's picked up
> by search engines, and is used whenever pictures can't be or aren't being
> displayed, so the audience is likely to wider than some might think. It
> has to be treated with the same care as the text in your headings, links,
> etc.
>
> Right now, only a human can do a good job of authoring alternative text.
>
> sb
> Sarah E. Bourne
> Director of IT Accessibility, MassIT
> Commonwealth of Massachusetts
> 1 Ashburton Pl. rm 811 Boston MA 02108
> 617-626-4502
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> http://www.mass.gov/MassIT
>
>