Congrats to Tapbots on the Ivory 2.2 release. However, to comment on their announcement post:

Ivory 2.2 for iOS/iPadOS is now available on the App Store! Release notes in the ALT text of the image or on the App Store.

This is not what alt text is for. With social platforms often showing alt text everywhere, effectively collapsing HTML alt and title attributes to be the same thing, this is increasingly misused. If the accessibility text does not match what’s in the image, it’s worse for folks who are visually impaired.

@manton This has been my feeling. I haven't done any research into whether accessibility experts and advocates also hold this line but either way it seems odd for people to have misused the attribute in this way.

I understand that on social platforms conventions are developed by use and all of that but this just feels off to me.

@SimonWoods The HTML Standard does not leave much room for interpretation when it comes to the alt attribute:

A corollary to this is that the alt attribute's value should never contain text that could be considered the image's caption, title, or legend. It is supposed to contain replacement text that could be used by users instead of the image; it is not meant to supplement the image. The title attribute can be used for supplemental information.

@sod Yes! Thank you. I have read that previously but my memory was hazy. Either way, then, it is undeniably misuse of the attribute.

@manton I keep coming back to “Alt-texts: The Ultimate Guide” by Daniel Göransson when I’m unsure how best to use it.