dankeck

How do you write alternate text for a work with visual artistic merit?

• How you balance too many words versus sufficient details?
• What details should come first?
• How do you account for different audiences, their needs and preferences?
• Should it be written by the original artist or a professional describer?

In a recent IAAP webinar, inclusive media expert Joanne Pak explained an initiative to answer these questions and more.

The Literary Image Description (LID) Best Practices Guide is a Canadian government-funded project aiming to:

offer a more vivid and engaging approach to writing image descriptions in an effort to make art and literature more accessible to all readers everywhere.

Visit the project website to download a well-researched and illustrated guide in EPUB or PDF. Then maybe next time you see a painting, sculpture, comic strip, or even clever set of visual instructions, you can take a swing at making your own image description*!

*But of course, don't publish unless you first talk to the author or do sufficient research into the intent!

This Tuesday, 2023-10-24: Women Who Code Advocacy Town Hall moderated by AmyJune Hineline ( @volkswagenchick@drupal.community )

From the event description:

• Hiring Process, Getting the Job, and Support at Work: Know the challenges and opportunities for individuals with disabilities throughout the hiring process, workplace support, and career growth.

• Visible and Invisible Disabilities: Understand and define visible and invisible disabilities, and how they affect individuals in the tech industry.

Legal Rights and Responsibilities: Learn about legal rights and responsibilities in hiring practices and actionable ways to advocate for yourself and others.

• How Allies Can Be Advocates: Explore how allies can play a role in advocating for individuals with disabilities and creating inclusive workplaces, and how technologists can develop with accessibility in mind.

• Access to Resources: Gain insights into accessibility resources and how you can find more support

Shared by @onsman@aus.social, a list of experts and organizations to follow for news and ideas on digital accessibility.

Employees of the state of Minnesota in the United States have created a "Maps Community of Practice" to advance the accessibility of digital and print maps.

• Story: How Minnesota Is Making Maps Accessible
• Resources: Minnesota IT Services Map Accessibility
• Webinar: Maps for All – Building Accessible Maps at the Great Lakes ADA Center website

This week I logged on to a Zoom webinar that had chat enabled. The meeting had a large attendance. The chat quickly filled up with dozens of people sharing their city or country, and later commenting on technical problems.

Some screen reader users had a difficult experience due to the heavy use of the chat. Here are three bits of feedback:

What is your opinion on this aspect of videoconference chat etiquette? I'm not talking about offensive or dangerous content--just the volume of content.

• Should frivolous chat messages be avoided, so that screen reader users don't miss important chat messages?
• Or is important that chat can be a chaotic free-for-all, to get the full Zoom experience?
• Does anyone have personal experience with this?
• Does anyone have a preferred etiquette guide that covers this?

Thumbnail image is an illustration of over a dozen empty word balloons, overlaid on each other in a chaotic mess. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Via @nick@hkc.social:

Big update to Firefox (117) dropped if using a screen reader. YouTube video lists, and videos themselves, now scroll much better than before.

Follow the creator at @dukope@mastodon social

No posts yet? Well, here's a post from 2017 with some sweet graffiti at Griggs Reservoir Park by the Scioto River.

A study in the journal Current Biology predicts that year-round daylight saving time could prevent 36,550 deer deaths, 33 human deaths, 2,054 human injuries and $1.19 billion in collision costs annually.