disclaimer: I don’t have any visual disability or any other disability that would give me a salient accessibility need for alt text. if you have a disability like that and want to chime in, please do! your opinion means a lot more than mine on this. I do benefit from alt text too but probably not nearly as much

anyway, I tend to mentally categorize alt text into three categories. the first is a very clinical description of the image that meanders around, overdescribing things with no real intent or tone behind it:

a picture of a woman. she is wearing a black fishnet top. you can see her nipples through the top. she is wearing black leggings, and you can see a bulge in the leggings. the background is a white-painted room with red neon lighting. everything looks red because of the red neon lighting.

this is… less than ideal. it communicates what the picture is of but in a way that is incredibly boring to read. it also doesn’t capture the intent behind the picture. how am I supposed to feel about each of the details? often a photographer will deliberately emphasize certain things with lighting, shadow, framing, poses, camera positioning, and a million other things. and all of that is lost with this description

put another way: photography is a very subtle art and this alt text is too unsubtle and too literal to do it justice

the second kind is written like a description in a novel:

in a small room with a soft, intimate red glow, [name] poses invitingly. she is almost beckoning the viewer forward, or even daring them to approach - showing off her perky breasts through a black fishnet top that presses into her skin sensually. she is spreading her thick, soft thighs, showing off her bulge that strains eagerly against her tight black leggings

this is my favorite kind. it usually expresses the mood of the scene perfectly and sometimes leaves me a little breathless after I’ve read it. I don’t just feel like I know what the picture is about - I feel like I’ve experienced it. and even if the image loaded, often I’ll read the alt text just to get that little bit of extra context on what the artist wanted to emphasize or express

but then there’s a third type:

in a small room with a soft, intimate red glow, [name] poses invitingly, almost daring you to approach. your eyes are drawn to her perky breasts, visible through a black fishnet top that you want to rip off of her. noticing your interest, she spreads her thick, soft thighs, showing off her bulge that strains eagerly against her tight black leggings. now all you can think about is how much you need to get on your knees and taste her

this is just my subjective opinion, but this makes me a bit uncomfortable and I don’t like reading it. I have a knee-jerk negative reaction to being told how I feel or what I want to do. and also, sometimes I don’t want to feel like a part of the scene, or like the intimacy of the pic is targeted at me specifically

but I’m curious if others are bothered by this too. this might just be a me thing

@kasdeya I agree with you, the 2nd type is my preference too. It often adds the right amount of soft tension.