Accessibility resources for Mastodon and compatible software (DRAFT)

DRAFT!
Suggestions and feedback welcome
on infosec.exchange, lemmy.blahaj.zone, or discussions.thenexus.today

One of the fediverse's strengths is a culture of putting "alt text" on photos and other image for people using screenreaders and other assistive technology. As important as that is, that's only one aspect of accessibility. Alas, the official Mastodon web user interface and mobile apps aren't great from an accessibility perspective.

Fortunately there are some better alternatives – and many of them also work with Mastodon-compatible software like Glitch, Hometown, GoToSocial, Akkoma, and Friendica.

Public service announcement: accessibility isn't just about the software. Most software these days has support for alt-text on images, but how many people actually use it? One of Mastodon's strengths is that many people do, which is great. Especially if you're a sighted person, please help by adding alt text to your images – and please make a point to only boost images which have alt text.

Here's a list that's a work in progress. If you've got other suggestions, please let me know!

• Semaphore and Enafore are accessible web user interfaces (both based on Nolan Lawson's no-longer-maintained Pinafore, which was as far as I know the Mastodon user interface that prioritized accessibility). elk.zone is also popular. You can use all of these no matter what Mastodon instance your account is on, and they also (mostly) work with many other fediverse software platforms.
• For iPhone and iPad, Mona (a paid app) is generally regarded the most accessible client for Mastodon and compatible software. For free apps, also heard good things about IceCubes. FediText also focuses on accessibility, and currently has better support for GoToSocial than other options, but is still in beta testing so you need to join Apple's TestFlight first.
• For Android, Pachli's latest release has several accessibility improvements (although it is not great if you're using a keyboard), and I've also heard people recommend Tusky.
• On Windows, Tweesecake and TWBlue both have good accessibility, and work with Friendica as well as Mastodon.

Note that not all of these clients support all the functionality of Mastodon (or other platforms). Also, your mileage may vary; as well as recommendations, I've also heard of people running into problems with different options.

Robert Kingett's Mastodon for writers/readers and Sarah Higley's (somewhat older, so not necessarily up-to-date) An oversimplified guide to setting up Mastodon are two good getting-started resources written with an accessibility focus. And Fedi.Tips' page on How do I use Mastodon through a screen reader has links to several other useful resources, including Mona tutorials and a Spanish-language guide to using NVDA with Mastodon.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Georgiana Brummell, Robert Kingett, Callum Stoneman, @adrian@talpa.ie, jandi@mastodon.social, and others who prefer to remain anonymous for all the very helpful information and feedback they generously shared with me as I worked on this post!