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Re: Dealing with Facebook's problematic automatic alt text generation (and other issues)

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From: Robert Fentress
Date: Feb 13, 2017 9:06AM

Hello, all.

I'm curious if folks have developed strategies for dealing with Facebook's
automatic alt text generation. As many of you probably know, Facebook now
analyzes images uploaded into its system and automatically generates text
alternatives for those images. This is great for when your average user,
who is unlikely to ever provide an alternative, uploads images. However,
for those who are actually trying to do things properly, this is
problematic, since there is no way (that I've been able to determine yet)
for editing these text alternatives, and they are frequently inadequate or
incorrect, or Facebook just adds alt text saying they couldn't make heads
nor tails of the image.

Currently, I'm recommending the following and wonder if it comports with
what others are doing or recommending:

1. Upload image to an album.
2. Examine the automatically-generated alt text to see if it is adequate.
3. If so, you're done. If not, continue to next step.
4. Add a brief description below the image in the album, where it says,
"Say something about this photo..."
5. From there, if necessary, share the photo to your timeline. This is
recommended, rather than uploading the image directly from your timeline,
because, if you upload to your album and add the description there, when
you share to your timeline, the description comes over with the image, but
there is still a place for you to add text for your post that is separate
from the description. So, the post text can be different from your image
text alternative and the alternative text is in one place in your album.

A problem with this is that the actual image alt attribute is still
incorrect or inadequate. Should one say so in the description?

Another issue I've encountered is that, for Pages, one cannot add alt text
to the cover photo and Facebook automatically sets the alt attribute of
this image to null. This may be the best default solution, since that
cover photo is often purely decorative. However, the problem is that that
image is also wrapped in an anchor tag and is the only content of that
link. This causes the href of the anchor tag to be read. I haven't been
able to come up with a workaround for that one. Ideas?

Obviously there are other problems with FB architecturally, but I'm
focusing on strategies for content creators/editors and trying to deal with
the things we have some control over.

Other strategies recommended in that regard, for Pages in Facebook, include:

- Host any videos on YouTube (captioned, of course, with described
versions, as appropriate) and link to them from within Facebook, rather
than uploading videos to Facebook directly, since, among other things, FB's
video player has poor keyboard support.
- If images of flyers advertising events are uploaded, include links to
accessible PDFs and Word docs (if available) of the flyers as well, and
make sure info in flyer image is replicated in post content.
- Provide an alternate channel for users to access content, such as
cross-posting to an accessible blog.
- In the About section of the Page
- Under Contact Info, add phone, and email, and a link to an
accessible contact form.
Under Story, include something like:
"Facebook Accessibility:
https://www.facebook.com/help/273947702950567/?helpref=hc_fnav
The Facebook mobile app may provide a more accessible experience for
some users.
Content in this feed can also be found on our blog at:
http://our.blog.edu"

Anything else folks can think of, focusing on what is within a content
creator/editor's control? Thanks!

Also, assuming I haven't overlooked anything obvious here, if you agree
with me, I'd urge folks to let FB know that they should really add the
ability to edit the alt text of images. It seems very strange that they
devoted so much time and energy to enabling the automatic text
alternatives, but did not provide humans the ability to edit them. Doing
that must be trivial, by comparison, don't you think?

Best,
Rob

P.S. Thanks to Queen's University
<http://www.queensu.ca/accessibility/how-info/social-media-accessibility>;
for many of these tips.

--
Robert Fentress
Senior Accessibility Solutions Designer
540.231.1255

Technology-enhanced Learning & Online Strategies
Assistive Technologies
1180 Torgersen Hall
620 Drillfield Drive (0434)
Blacksburg, Virginia 24061