Assembled in preparation for a presentation aimed at City of Seattle staff for #GlobalAccessibilityAwarenessDay #GAAD #GAAD2024.
Intro and some presentation technology points.
First, thank you to Holly Delcambre and Autumn Harris for the invitation to present and to the tech team for helping with the presentation process.
The initial part of this presentation is going to be a video recorded on Zoom with Zoom auto captioning. Then there will be live Q & A at the end. I am not going to interact with the chat but will ask the tech team both to collect questions and to please advise me if for instance I need to slow down for interpreters.
If for some reason screenshare doesn't work well for you, you can more or less follow along at rantwoman.blogspot.com/GAADoutline
This blog post is partly intended to parallel the Powerpoint, including a transcript of planned content. The slides contain links to individual posts at my personal blog, RantWoman.Blogspot.com The presentation will also include links to other resources.
The presentation strives to model some presentation best practices. I am not going to read every link for the demos presented but they can be found using the hashtags #GAAD and #GAAD2024 on my blog.
For more extensive commentary about Powerpoint, though probably not about presenting with a screen reader check out the Death by Powerpoint tag.
Finally, in addition to hashtags and my personal idiosyncratic tags, this post uses Headings to allow screen reader users to find pieces of the post without having to reread the whole post.
More technological comments:
I use both screen reader and screen enlargement. I am not a fount of wisdom about issues like back end screen reader accessibility for blogger. I simply use the tools I have learned in the platforms I am most comfortable in.
I also am not a whiz about Powerpoint, content design, video creation and editing, or every nuance of screen readers. The Powerpoint presentation includes links to some demos of user experience with a screen reader. Demos will be screen share recordings with sound in Zoom and captioning will be Zoom auto-captioning. I hope the presentation will be memorable anyway.
The recording links will be added to this post after the presentation.
There are MANY content Creation tools out there. People consume social media content in all kinds of ways. I am going to focus on just a few dimensions of accessibility with some brief demos of user experience when #A11y is neglected. I hope viewers will come away with at least one tip they can use all the time with the tools they already use or a vision of features they need in any tools they are considering.
More detail
All purpose standards reference: Web Contant Accessibility Guidelines, currently WCAG 2.0 with many helpful links at WebAIM.org
#A11y tips for people who are blind
--Use Alt Text to describe images
--Capitalize every word in hashtags
--Put event details in plain text even if you are also uploading a great graphic with the event details in graphic format. Also helpful: provide a link if you want to provide more information than is allowed in one post (Personally, I do not currently have a paid presence on X / Twitter. I consider it good discipline to fit my post in the current 280 character limit.)
--There is sound and there is sound: Consider a short video that has some kind of catchy music but nothing audible to aid a blind person in understandaing what the video is about. See Demo
--There is a whole separate section in hell for text in graphics. More about this separately.
--DO NOT roll text over video content, especially over the faces of people talking. Screen reader users will not find such text at all. People who are low vision may have trouble focusing fast enough to read the text. Many people, not just people who identify as Deaf or hearing impaired rely a great deal on lip reading as well as facial expression. Just avoid text over other content.
#A11y Tips for people who are low vision or color blind.
--CONTRAST matters for people who are low vision or color blind. Also many people do not own printers but may print in places like public libraries that have only black and white printing.
--Contrast checking for color content is complex. Some content creation tools have contrast checkers built in. In other cases, an internet search might start with the info available through The WebAIM Contrast checker Pick an approach you like and stick with it.
--Quick and Dirty: Use operating system tools to Test how your content looks in Black and White.
--My Quick and Dirty for this presentation will use screenshots and Zoom clips in color schemes availabe through Zoomtext, the screen enlargement tool I use.
--Contrast again: Text over images is not picked up by screen readers and may not be identifiable to people who are low vision.
#A11y tips for people who are deaf or hearing impaired.
--For short social media posts, consider posting a transcript separately.
An Example with both Video and a Transcript
Other Miscellaneous tips:
Beware of images with flash: some flash rates can cause seizures
Built accessibility in from the outset. make it a habit. That way, even if you are as adept as RantWoman at pushing deadlines, you won't lose the accessibility game.
Know the limits of your tools:
--How much alt text is allowed.
--Do you have options in your tool to check contrast or do you need to look for a tool that checks contrast?
--Do you trust automated text captioning or alt text generation or do you need to plan for that as part of the work plan.
--If you are creating content in one platform and then exporting it to a PDF or to another platform will functionality such as links and headings be preserved?
--If the platform you want to post to does not make it easy to create accessible, post a link to accessible content from another platform.
Other Examples
Quick and Dirty Contrast Checks
Alt Text What makes good alt text
Accessible Prescription Labels
Guide Dog Video that leaves something to be desired
The Dreaded Text in Graphics
Other places I look for examples
(use search engines to find)
Anything produced by Disability Rights WA
The Non-driver project
Other disability rights and disability services organizations.
Points to Remember
Use Alt Text on all images. For best results, do not rely on what happens automatically.
Avoid writing text over images
Always Check contrast
If a platform does not allow you to make content accessible, post a link to something that is accessible.
Provide captions whenever there is audio.
To avoid causing seizures, be cautious about flash.
One last comment about logos and the importance of contrast.
YES, event sponsor logos matter.
Blind people are VERY divided about how much we want to know about other people’s appearance. As a general rule, I recommend not worrying about it unless specifically requested. But I have a T-shirt that is a bit of a joke. Two years ago I attended the American Council of the Blind national convention in Omaha NE. The convention T shirt is dark red with dark blue design, really terrible contrast. The front image is the Bob Kerrey pedestrian bridge. The back is a bunch of sponsor logos and I have to think the sponsors might prefer their logos be a little more visible.
Final thoughts
Even if you only do one accessibility step and remember to do it all the time, your social media content will be accessible to more people.
Software and platforms constantly evolve but many customers appreciate stability and are not automatically eager to learn everything new that comes along..
Closing comments
Thank you all for joining this presentation. I hope I have left you with some easy approaches and
resources.
