Icon description length.

[alucinari]

Title:
Icon description length.

Area:
Icon descriptions.

Summary:
Increasing the length of the icon description.

Description:
Hello! I have friends that use screen readers, and a problem I have found is that when I am trying to describe icons, especially if it's a text icon with a longer quote on it, there's not enough room for me to properly describe what's going on; I either have to leave a lackluster description, or resort to chat speak, and sometimes even that doesn't really do the trick. It would be really helpful if DreamWidth allowed longer icon descriptions! It should be easy to allow more characters, and there shouldn't be any drawbacks, I don't think? Thank you for your consideration.

Poll #16838 Icon description length.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 43

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This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
26 (60.5%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
2 (4.7%)

(I have no opinion)
15 (34.9%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[lightgetsin]

Yes, I've been thwarted by the shortness of that field, too. I'm in favor of lengthening, but I'd also say as a person who does read the descriptions, there is a limit to my interest and attention, and the field should not be so large as to let describers hang themselves on it, to mix a metaphor.

[kyrielle]

I think there's a certain amount of "you can't win" there, because someone trying to describe the icon I am using could easily hang themselves in the amount of space *needed* to describe an animated icon with a quote.

[lightgetsin]

Maybe. Then again, maybe not. In my experience, good alt text is not long. It doesn't have to be. And the expectation that it should be long is, I have been told many many times by alt text hostile people, one reason they don't want to do it.

[musyc]

I really like that post of yours. I've re-read it several times and it's helped a lot.

[lightgetsin]

:D

[ninetydegrees]

What musyc said! Thanks a lot!

Also what would help imo is actually seeing what you write in its entirety. I always double check that it's not too long by looking at my icons page. It's the only way I can fully realize how long it is.

[denise]

What do you think would be a reasonable length? I'm not sure what a good balance between "long enough for a good description" and "short enough to not be a pain in the fucking ass to hear each time" would be...

(It's 120 characters now.)

Actually, if anybody who uses a screenreader regularly could chime in with an answer to that question, it'd be awesome.

[lightgetsin]

Hm. 250 characters? Idk, this is a hard question. Longer than a tweet, shorter than a paragraph is my feeling, fwiw.