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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 07:08:11 JST Paul Cantrell

   Hey, folks who understand alt text and limited vision accessibility:

   I have need to write alt text for the diagram below. The alt text needs to be comprehensible to somebody who is encountering this kind of diagram for the ••very first time••. I could describe the images using the relevant jargon, but that would only serve people who already know the thing this activity is teaching them!

   Any suggestions for how I could write good alt text for something like this? Is it possible?

   PLEASE NOTE: I am looking for people with ••relevant accessibility expertise••, not just random best shots from people who (like me) don’t really know much about this problem.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:40:59 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Thanks for the thoughtful replies. Answers to questions:

     Many people asked for the context. This is for college students using what they already know about the order of arithmetic operations to start analyzing the structure of code. In the activity, they visual code structures using these kind of diagrams. The important thing here is thus not just subtraction; it’s this way of visualizing the relationships — and there already is a sight-centeric word, “visualize!” But I suspect a blind reader could also use these spatial relationships as a learning tool…if there were a good way of conveying the spatial relationships.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:42:43 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     The proper way to do this for a blind student would surely be some kind of physical manipulatives, not verbal descriptions. The thing is, I don’t have any blind students currently, and if I did, we’d work on individual accommodation and assistance.

     With this alt text, I’m just trying to get •something• in there to be at least minimally accessible: head start on those accommodation, something helpful if I ever share this online, etc. If there’s any way for text to convey the spatial relationships, that would be better than the text I have.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:44:28 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     The text I have conveys the •meaning• of the diagram, and it’s better than nothing:

     ❝Three different trees showing possible interpretations of 1000 - 100 - 10 - 1. In the first tree, subtraction happens from left to right. In the second tree, it happens from right to left. In the third tree, we first compute 1000 minus 100, then 10 minus 1, then subtract those two results.❞

     That’s probably the best I can do in the current format. But if there were a way to make that more spatial, I’d do it!

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:45:51 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • 🔥Cassandra🔥

     @Cassandra You’re welcome to look at my current text, with context upthread if you want it:
     https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/114639311112065227

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     🔥Cassandra🔥 (cassandra@ottawa.place)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:45:52 JST 🔥Cassandra🔥

     in reply to

     @inthehands I put a lot of effort into alt text but I don’t know what that graph is showing. If of use, I would be happy to do a layperson user-test of what you(s) come up with.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:47:17 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • bri

     @brhfl
     That would be my normal approach. The trick here is that these diagrams •are• the thing the reader is learning about; see here & downthread: https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/114639297439738836

   • Embed this notice
     bri (brhfl@digipres.club)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:47:18 JST bri

     in reply to

     @inthehands do you specifically need to describe it as a diagram? that is to say, is there a way to get the actual information you need to convey across without even considering the visual elements? ultimately the goal isn’t ‘describe an image perfectly,’ it’s ‘get all the relevant information to the access tech user that the sighted user would get’.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:47:55 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Jan Ainali

     @ainali
     There’s context in the document that makes it make sense. Really I’m just trying to figure out if there’s any hope of conveying these spatial relationships in text.

   • Embed this notice
     Jan Ainali (ainali@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:47:56 JST Jan Ainali

     in reply to

     @inthehands not a tip for the alt text, but just admitting as someone who have no expertise in whatever it is trying to show I don't understand it at all *even though* I can see the image. So perhaps this is an image that can assume expertise to be understood?

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:49:00 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • J Miller

     @JMMaok
     Your explanation formula is helpful. The thing I’m wrestling with is whether the spatial relationships (which are the point, not just an illustration) are something text can convey; see here & downthread: https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/114639297439738836

   • Embed this notice
     J Miller (jmmaok@mastodon.online)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:49:01 JST J Miller

     in reply to

     @inthehands

     Drawing on my MS in Technical Communication.

     Is it possible to present this as 3 separate images? Or to present the 3 images separately first, then present them together?

     Consider: tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them. “I am going to present 3 diagrams that join the numbers …. with lines in different ways to illustrate the concept of ….”

   • Embed this notice
     Rowland Mosbergen (rowlandm@disabled.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:49:35 JST Rowland Mosbergen

     in reply to

     @inthehands

     I've had some experience trying to explain relatively complex diagrams in alt text for the 2024 equivalent of #RSAA25

     The biggest challenge was to ensure that the meaning behind the diagram was explained.

     Here is a relatively simple example that I did last year. There were about 10 or 12 I had to do for the keynote last year.

     If I was going into more detail, I would explain more about kubernetes etc.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:49:35 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Rowland Mosbergen

     @rowlandm
     Your alt text on that image is a helpful example, thank you!

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:52:55 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Matt Cengia

     @mattcen I like your text! Some of that context is, just as you suggest, in the surrounding document — but sentences like “the peak node is a subtraction symbol” are what I’m looking for.

   • Embed this notice
     Matt Cengia (mattcen@aus.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:52:56 JST Matt Cengia

     in reply to

     @inthehands Firstly, consider what context a *sighted* person would need to know to understand a diagram like this for the very first time. Write accompanying text to facilitate that context. Then describe each tree individually (as separate images) verbatim. The context should not be part of the alt text; that gives more info to folks who read alt text to those who don't, which isn't the intent of alt text.
     I'd take inspiration from places like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_expression_tree and https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/expression-tree/.

   • Embed this notice
     Matt Cengia (mattcen@aus.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 09:52:56 JST Matt Cengia

     in reply to

     Mathematical expressions can be represented as binary trees. For example, (1 + 2) can be represented with a peak node "+", linked to exactly 2 child nodes, "1" and "2".
     In a slightly more complex example, (3 - (1 + 2)) can be represented by a peak node "-", which has 2 child nodes: a left child node of "3", and a right child node of "+". "+" also has 2 child nodes: "1" on the left, "2" on on the right.
     In this way, every operator (plus, minus, times, divide, etc.) is a node with two children, and each value, or operand, is a leaf node (i.e. has no children).
     Below are three expression trees.

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     D2 (cascheranno@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 21:13:56 JST D2

     in reply to

     @inthehands I like. Two bits of confusion:

     trees is overloaded with other meaning… alternate terms could be tree structures, structures branching left & right like trees, forked-path diagrams?

     Did the third one really subtract 9 from 900?!