But I think it’s OK as a hashtag because it’s idiomatic, and is no more cryptic than half the other hashtags out there.

And it’s not called the alt tag. It’s the alt thingy.

I do suggest one more abbrevation, just one I promise!
I think bikeshedding should be b10g

Just a small joke

#usable obviously already tied to #usability, but isn’t there so much cross over with accessibility they could be used interchangeably? (I’m curious as to what usability peeps would say on this, but I like #usable as a #a11y alternative)

I would say accessibility implies usability – accessibility isn’t just about having keyboard access, but making that keyboard access easy (logical tab order, visible focus etc)

Just my take on it…

I’m with Jack that it o8s u12y and I w3d n4y go so far as to say that it will b3g a3t the end of c12e c11n in c10n!

It’s part of a bigger picture of trimming down long and often written words that are problematic to write over and over again. It should be used only when suitable to context i.e. with others who work in that area and not in general blog posts etc.

It also works for me on Twitter with 140 characters but shouldn’t be used if you can fit the full word in.

I really don’t see it as a big issue. Yes there will be people who don’t know the meaning but like with most things you don’t know about you ask / search for an answer. I do that constantly in my day-to-day work.

It seems to me that this rather misses the point of accessibility, and that those claiming it’s okay if you only use it when you think your audience is other people who already know it are the equivalent of people who say “but blind people don’t use my site”.

You’re putting up an unnecessary barrier. You shouldn’t. End of.

Basically, it’s a lot easier to type when you have to type it many times each day, which is important for those have have suffered repetitive strain like myself.