Stop copying ALT to TITLE on IMG tags

[yesthatjwz]

Steps to reproduce the problem

When I read my feed in the web interface, the mouse cursor must be in the feed column for the scroll wheel to work. This means that as I am scrolling, the mouse often ends up on top of an image. Every time that happens for an image with alt text, a tooltip pops up obscuring the image.

Expected behaviour

Do not display tool tips on images

Actual behaviour

The other thing

Detailed description

The only way to avoid this is to carefully thread my mouse through the tiny channel between the image and the scroll bar.

According to MDN:

The title attribute is not an acceptable substitute for the alt attribute. Additionally, avoid duplicating the alt attribute's value in a title attribute declared on the same image. Doing so may cause some screen readers to announce the same text twice, creating a confusing experience.

And:

Perhaps the most important reason to use the alt property is to support accessibility, as the alt text may be used by screen readers and other assistive technologies to help people with a disability make full use of your content. It will be read aloud or sent to a braille output device, for example, to support blind or visually impaired users. The alternate text is displayed in the space the image would occupy and should be able to take the place of the image without altering the meaning of the page.

Please note, I am not saying "do not use alt text", I am saying "do so properly, and stop misusing the TITLE attribute". Alt text is important and should be encouraged, but the way you are displaying it is wrong and annoying.

If you would like to provide the ability for people to see the alt text even if they do have image loading turned on, and are not using assistive technology, that's great: you already have a place to do that. Any image that has alt text also has a box in the bottom left corner overlayed on it that say "ALT". Make that clickable.

But please stop making me play a game of "snake" and thread my mouse through a tiny channel to avoid hiding images behind their description.

Mastodon instance

mastodon.social

Mastodon version

v4.3.0-nightly.2024-04-18

Browser name and version

Safari 17

Operating system

macOS 14

Technical details

No response