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There are a lot of blind people on here, who use screen reader software to tell them what is on the screen. To help screen reader users, it's a good idea to use emoji rather than old-style smileys.
For example 😄 will be read out loud as "smile" because that's its alt text. However, :D will be read out loud as "colon D".
(Some old-style smileys do work with screen readers, but most don't. Emoji are safer.)
If you're interested in accessibiity, I strongly recommend following @weirdwriter
CubeOfCheese
@feditips @weirdwriter I never thought about that. Thanks for sharing
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It's not just about unicode emoji?
When you add a custom emoji on Mastodon, you can include an alt text which is what appears when you hover over it.
valentin_petzel
@feditips @weirdwriter Emojis do not have an alt text. They do have a unicode description which is more descriptive of the appearance than of the conveyed meaning. For example the emoji you have given is described as "smiling face with open mouth and smiling eyes". Any other meaning will need to be specially mapped by the screen reader. And it is equally dangerous to assume screen readers will map your emojis as it is to assume they'd map something like :D. ...
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In Mastodon you can type emoji if you start with a colon and enter a keyword.
For example :sun will automatically bring up emoji with the keyword sun.
Nazo
@feditips @weirdwriter I was kind of wondering about this myself. As food for thought, might it not be useful for the interface to offer an option to automatically convert emoji? It gets tiresome selecting emoji from a list instead of just typing them.
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It's not just about unicode emoji.
If you create a custom emoji on Mastodon, part of the creation process involves giving it an alt text.
Andreas, DJ3EI, he/him
Agreed.
I just hesitate to call that "Unicode string" an "alt text". For me, an alt text is something in HTML (or XML): The content of some tag's "alt" attribute.
To my excuse: Precise terminology can prevent confusion. Example: "Plain text cannot contain alt texts." - "🤔 Wait! The alt texts of emojis are read out all right!" Or: "The document author determines the language and content of alt texts."
At the end of the day, we all agree what authors should do.
Robert Kingett backup
@dj3ei @feditips A screen reader translates an image’s meaning via its alt text, and emojis are also ‘read’ through a type of alt text – the Unicode string – which represents each emoji. Screen readers interpret the Unicode character string used by browsers and operating systems, to understand and display emojis.
Andreas, DJ3EI, he/him
Good counsel, as we are used from you, @feditips 🌹!
🤔
But, to pick a nit: Is the reasoning correct?
A standard emoticon like the one in your example is a plain humble unicode character. There's no HTML tag with an alt attribute, characters simply do not have alt texts. Its images and other media that do. The "smile" is added by an English screen reading software.
It may be different when people use custom emojis provided by their server instance. My choice: I generally don't.
@weirdwriter
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p.s. Sorry, I didn't phrase original post very well, just want to make clear that @weirdwriter helped with creating this tip which is why I recommend following them!
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I am not sure whether screen readers use unicode names or alt texts.
The alt text I can see in my browser for that emojii is simply "triumph".
Either way though, you're absolutely right, that emoji is not at all triumphant looking. It just conveys anger and rage.
Fanny Matrice
@feditips @weirdwriter I have a stupid question, but is 😤 read as "Face With Look of Triumph" (it's official unicode name) ?
Because I doubt most people use it for expressing anything else than anger
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Ahhhh, interesting... so the screen reader does ignore the alt text sometimes if there's a description from somewhere else?
I assume with custom emoji like :kirby_run: it reads out the alt text? (On that one it should say "kirby run" if it's the alt text.)
Robert Kingett backup
@babouille @feditips On VoiceOver on iOS it says, face with steam from nose
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I'm not attacking or blaming anyone.
I consulted with a screenreader user who informed me this was an issue for them, so I posted a tip about it.
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