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One week update: industry alignment for #AltAtSource is gaining momentum

A square graphic split vertically. The left side shows a vibrant outdoor flower market stall with buckets of colourful tulips and bouquets under a white awning. The right side shows the same scene obscured by a heavy black-and-white pixelation filter, representing a lack of visual clarity. Overlaid in the center is a yellow rectangular banner with the text "#AltAtSource" in a serif font, and a smaller blue banner below it angled upwards with the text "One week update" in a sans-serif font.

Digital accessibility is moving from a "last-mile" manual task to a "source-first" reality. My campaign, #AltAtSource, aims to embed ALT text in image metadata (IPTC/XMP) so it stays with the file forever.

The industry is reaching a point of critical alignment.

The pioneers: Craft CMS and WordPress

The most exciting news is coming from the CMS world, where the logic of metadata preservation is finally taking centre stage.

Pixel & Tonic (Craft CMS) proved how nimble a company can be. Within one week of my proposal, they added the feature to natively support accessibility metadata mapping. They didn't just "file" the idea; they executed it.

Equally encouraging is the progress within the WordPress community. While independent of my specific campaign, WordPress developers have been working on Ticket #55535, which aims to bring native metadata extraction to the core. This feature is slated for the major WordPress 7.0 release. While originally scheduled for early April, the release is currently in its final stages and is expected to roll out in the coming weeks. Seeing a platform that powers 40% of the web already aligned with these goals is a massive validation of the #AltAtSource mission.

The corporate walls: Apple and LinkedIn

While the open-web communities are sprinting, the hardware and social giants are lagging.

Apple’s response was particularly eye-opening. Despite my proposal being motivated by altruism and a clear statement that I was seeking no remuneration, they cited a strict policy against accepting "unsolicited ideas." As stated in Apple’s official policy, Apple and its employees do not accept or consider unsolicited ideas for new products or improvements. While this is a legal shield for the company, it creates a frustrating barrier to systemic, game-changing improvements from the very experts who use their products.

Similarly, LinkedIn’s rapid but non-committal "we'll consider it" response shows how hard it is for massive platforms to pivot, even when the benefit to the user is undeniable.

One step at a time

I am running this campaign entirely on my own, and with limited time, progress is naturally a deliberate, "one-target-at-a-time" process.

I am currently in discussions with the Drupal community to explore how they can join Craft and WordPress in this metadata revolution. Once that bridge is built, my next targets are Shopify and Webflow, followed by the major social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest.

References

Related information

#AltAtSource — A campaign to fix the biggest gap in accessibility

Ensuring accessibility starts at the shutter, not the screen.

Read more

Article by Simon Leadbetter

The Accessibility Guy at Kindera

Simon Leadbetter
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