Alt-Text Gallery

I am inexperienced in writing image descriptions and alt text. However accessibility is important to me. I don't just want to write any old alt text and be done with it. I want to be carefully designing the experience of screen reader users, just as I do for the other visitors of my website.

My vision for the future is to have a "see more" link for some or all Gallery items. This would link to a page with a larger view of the image, notes, progress pictures, and an extended image description. But for now, there will at least be the alt text and caption.

My goals for alt-text in my gallery:

Convey some of what's in the image.
Be a companion for the image captions. No need to repeat that information twice.
Be as skimmable. There are a lot of items in the gallery, and I don't want visitors to get bogged down listening to detailed descriptions of each one unless they've already decided they want to hear more.
Be engaging. The images are the whole point in the Gallery, so they should be enjoyable to browse.

Designing alt-text of art is art. Thus, it makes sense to display it proudly in my gallery. This makes it more visible for me. As I grow and learn, it makes it much easier to notice my past work writing alt-text, and I will be more likely to fix old mistakes. This makes it more visible for you. You can get examples of writing alt text for art (though remember I'm no expert) and perhaps you'll have some suggestions for me as well.

This list is generated from the metadata I've put into my static site generator, so it will automatically update when I add things to the main gallery. If you see a mistake in an alt text here, it's also a mistake in the main gallery, so please let me know!

Dragon curve fractal embroidered onto a patch and embellished with a dragon head, claws, and spines.: Dragon curve I made for my wife when we first met. Inspired by the iconic video by Vi Hart.; (Dragon Curve)
Small square quilt with muted florals. There is a line of four bright blue shapes going across the diagonal.: My first ever quilt, Frisbee in the Garden. I hand-quilted it. Piecing and design were a collaboration with my wife.; (Frisbee in the Garden)
Unfinished quilt with big yellow stars. There are safety pins holding it together.: Preview of my current quilting project: a celestial tesselation!; (Supernova and Black Hole (Lap Quilt))
Seven fabric hexagons sewn together in a cluster.: I made four of these EPP coaster tops a couple years ago and haven't quilted them yet. The middle fabric is a gift from my friends.; (Node Coasters)
Center of unfinished tumbling-blocks quilt with radial symmetry.: My work-in-progress English paper piecing quilt. I made the design while doodling in my computer graphics class. I like the radial symmetry. English piecing takes forever, and I have no idea if I'll ever finish! That's why I'm starting from the middle, so it's easier to give up and still have something pretty.; (Tumbling Tumbling Blocks)
A big round eyeball with green eyes and a diamond pupil is staring straight at you, embroidered in a dense brick-like stitch pattern. Clusters of chain-stitch leaves and wandering back-stitch roots sprout from it.: I started this freshman year of college and then forgot about it halfway finished until like four years later. It's inspired from a doodle I did while I should have been taking notes.; (Growing Eye)
A hybrid of a human skull and an angler fish. It has horns, a fish tail, and a glowing lure that shines in front of it. It is desnsely stitched in a brick-like pattern that follows the contours of the skull, and sits against a fabric with a bubble background.: I made this for a friend I met at band camp. It's inspired by our skeleton and deep-sea creature inspired theme for our band.; (Skull Fish)
Little My has her hands on her hips and a devious little smirk on her face. She is embroidered in outline, and has little red stitches accentuating the hem of her dress.: I made this for my mom. It's traced from a little cartoon of Little My from the Moomins. I think I captured the expression really well for just a few stitches.; (Little My)
Assorted photographs and diagrams are jumbled together haphazardly on the page. An ad states: Mars is peopled, and they want soap! Galileo is hanging out with a volcano. Small text at the top says 'Cometa'.: After our last quantum final senior year, my physics classmates and I sat around and cut up old physics textbooks to make collages. This is mine.; (Cometa)
Black and white photograph. Dark shadows dance across something standing against the bricks. It's a pair of rubber work boots. Their shape is mostly obscured, but the side of one boot and the toes are brightly illuminated.: I took film photography in high school. I liked seeing what shapes I could make with hard lighting. These boots are one of the photos I'm most proud of. I love how the lighting makes them almost abstract, and I love how different the bricks look in the sun versus the shadow.; (Work Boots)