Don't use line breaks in alt-text!

When you write an alt-text, don't add line breaks and always put the entire alt-text into one paragraph!

Now you might say that your alt-text looks so much better with line breaks.

Why line breaks are bad

But: The main target audience of your alt-text are blind or visually-impaired people. They cannot read your alt-text. They will never see and appreciate your pretty line breaks because they literally cannot see. Or not well enough at least.

At the same time, however, line breaks are likely to irritate the screen readers which these self-same blind or visually-impaired people use. Screen readers don't expect line breaks in alt-texts. So whenever a new line starts in an alt-text, they're likely to think that there's a new alt-text for a new image starting.

Whenever a screen reader reaches the start of an alt-text (or whatever it takes for the start of an alt-text), it speaks out something like, "Graphic," or, "Image." So if your alt-text has multiple paragraphs, the screen reader will think that each paragraph is one alt-text for one image, and it will say, "Graphic," or, "Image," at the beginning of every single paragraph.

Example

Let's suppose your alt-text is this, both sentences in one paragraph:

This is the first sentence. This is the second sentence.

Then the screen reader will say, "Graphic. This is the first sentence. This is the second sentence."

Now, let's suppose your alt-text is this, with a line break between the sentences:

This is the first sentence.

This is the second sentence.

Then the screen reader will say, "Graphic. This is the first sentence. Graphic. This is the second sentence." As if there are two images. Even though there is only one. But the alt-text for that one image has two paragraphs.

Why screen readers do that

But why do screen readers behave like that? Why don't screen reader developers make all screen readers compatible with line breaks in alt-text?

Because outside of the Fediverse, alt-texts don't have line breaks.

And why not?

Because unlike what some of you may think, alt-text was not invented in and for the Fediverse. It has existed for longer than social networks and social media themselves. Before alt-texts became an integral part of Mastodon's culture no earlier than 2022, alt-text was something that mostly only professionals used because they were paid to.

Outside of the Fediverse, alt-texts are supposed to be short. No longer than 200 characters. Preferably even shorter, 120 characters or fewer. Monster alt-texts with 800 or 1,000 or more characters which look like they require line breaks are a Mastodon thing. Every professional Web designer will either blankly stare in total and utter disbelief or scream and writhe in pain and agony when they see what monstrous image descriptions are normal around here.

Look at all these alt-text and image description guidelines. The huge majority of them are not about Mastodon. And just about every single last one of them will tell you to keep your alt-texts short and concise. Literally no need for line breaks here.

This, people, this is the established alt-text length standard. And not Mastodon.

And this is the alt-text length standard that screen readers are designed for. And not Mastodon. 99% of all screen reader users out there will never come across any content from Mastodon or from any other microblogging or macroblogging or image-posting application in the Fediverse. In fact, I'd bet that not a single screen reader developer has ever even heard of Mastodon or the Fediverse, much less the super-long image descriptions that have become so popular on Mastodon in stark contrast to the rest of the Web.