Disability and Accessibility

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All things disability and accessibility related, and advocacy for making those things better.

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‘May be an image’: what it’s like browsing Instagram while blind (www.theverge.com)

submitted 2 years ago by dankeck to c/disability

3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This article is two years old but still relevant to social media in 2023.

One of the biggest barriers is the assumption that blind people just won’t be interested in visual media. “Just because they’re visual doesn’t mean that they’re immediately not attractive to people who are blind or low vision,” says McCann. “I think that’s one big misconception: ‘Oh, well, they don’t care about pictures.’ But we do.” When culture is molded on social networks, it sucks to lose out on a shared social language because you can’t see the images everyone is talking about.

Christy Smith Berman, a low vision editor at Can I Play That, responded to a TT Games tweet that announced the delay of Star Wars Lego with text on an image. When she replied with a request for alt text, Smith Berman was met with responses from people expressing disbelief that blind people would even be on Twitter to begin with, let alone care about video games.

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[–] fracture 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

this is really good. i didn't think much of filling out alt text because i figured, if you couldn't see the image, you're basically missing out anyways. but the perspective of filling out the alt text specifically to convey why you posted an image is good, i didn't consider that. so i'm glad i read this and broadened my horizon a little bit

i feel like it's still difficult to think of what to put for things like art i've done, but i'm gonna do my best to do give it a good effort next time

i think cohost has good support for adding alt text, but i realized i'm not actually sure. they call it "description", and i have no idea how well it plays with screen readers or if it actually functions as alt text

[–] dankeck 3 points 2 years ago

I just went to https://cohost.org/vogon with the screen reader NVDA and tried to browse the graphics of electronics there.

Good news: the web page is coded correctly, and I heard alt text for the images as expected. Kudos to cohost, and also thanks to you for working to include as many people as possible.

[–] retronautickz 3 points 2 years ago

i feel like it’s still difficult to think of what to put for things like art i’ve done, but i’m gonna do my best to do give it a good effort next time

There are resources that can teach you how to describe images/create alternative text. What I wound recommend is:

Describe only what it's essential to convey the image. You don't need to describe the several shades of green in the grass or the several shades of brown in a character's hair.
Describe the important details/things as complete as you can
Give context if required. "A man sitting under a tree" isn't the same as "A man sitting under a tree as part of a protest against deforestation"
Always determine the type of image/art