Welcome to a Weird Oasis @oodlesoasis - Tumblr Blog

Here's to hellsite solidarity!

Hi everyone! Just a quick reminder that gradient text is not screen reader accessible!

In case you’re confused, here’s some more detail:

What’s a screen reader? It’s a software used mainly by blind and visually impaired people. It reads the text on a screen aloud, so you don’t have to see it.

What’s gradient text? Gradient text is when people use the customization options on Tumblr to turn every letter in a word a different color. This option is currently not available to all users, so I can’t show you myself, but here are two screenshots I took:

[ID: The words “ghibli + spring” in a green to red gradient. /end ID]

[ID: The words “happy lesbian visibility day” in the colors of the lesbian pride flag. Red, orange, and pink. Next to that, it says “Derry Girls (2018-)” in regular black font. /end ID]

How is it inaccessible? Instead of reading the words or sentences normally, my screen reader spells everything letter by letter when it’s gradient text. This makes it very hard to understand.

Does this apply to all websites and screen readers? I’m not sure, but at the least it applies to Tumblr and my screen reader. I haven’t run into gradient text on other websites.

I really like gradient text. What should I do? I would suggest adding a plain text version after the gradient, like this: Example [Example]

By the way, this is not an attack on anyone! I used the two examples above not to shame anyone, but just to illustrate my point. I purposely only took a screenshot of the gradient part and not the rest of the post or username.

It’s fine if you didn’t know about this before. There is no shame in not knowing.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

keplercryptids

all of this!

also, i just want to stress that while some screen readers will read the text aloud just fine (mine does, for example), no screen reader that i know of will indicate the text color change. so in addition to including a plain text version, another thing you should do is note what colors the original text were in. the examples included do a great job of this!

gradients are often important to the context of the post (for example, pride messages in certain lgbtq+ flag colors) but i almost never see the text described in plain text AND what it looks like visually. so yeah, i just wanted to add that!

mightyoctopus

That’s a great addition! Also, some people have been asking questions, which I’ll try to answer:

@elephants-are-cool asked: Will the screen reader still read the gradient and the normal text? Or just the normal?

The screen reader will read both out loud. First it will spell out the gradient, then it will read the normal sentence.

@aromanticduck asked: So does that mean for example that you can put ‘lgbt’ in gradient because the letters are meant to be spelt out anyway?

I hadn’t thought of that, but yes, you could do that. (As an aside, I would advise to always put LGBT and other acronyms in capital letters, because if you don’t, a screen reader might not recognize it and try to read it as a word, instead of spelling it.)

Some people asked what screen reader I use. It’s VoiceOver. I ran into the same issue with Spoken Content, though, which I used in the past.

Also, I think this glitch might only exist in the browser version of tumblr, but not the app. But I don’t use the app often, so I’m not sure.

There were also a lot of people in the notes and tags talking about the issues they have with gradient text, even though they don’t use screen readers. Gradient text can cause issues for people who are photo sensitive, dyslexic, color blind, and much more. Please tag ‘#colored text’ if you use gradient text in your post.

Thank you!

luvwich

gradient text maker

i made a tool for creating gradient text! it's similar to this great site, but with a few additional features:

extract a color palette from an image

paste a string of hex codes to load the colors

AO3 export mode (it's a bit of a pain in the ass but it works)

on neocities →

luvwich

stoked that some folks found this useful :3 i added a feature that checks for contrast and suggests a lighter or darker color based on your preferences:

you can configure how much contrast it will optimize for; the idea is to aim for colors that will be readable against dark or light backgrounds!

it isn't perfect (e.g. it won't check for all the intermediate colors between the ones you've selected), but i think it's pretty handy~ you can turn it off if you don't need it!

wormontwostrings

gieoki

thanks for walking me home

hiveswap

"Is it a safe space to say i hate-" NOT IN THE MAINTAGS IT ISNT

hiveswap

"I hate [character] from [show] soo much #character, #characters's full name, #show,

ARE YOU INSANE

quotidianish

they could never make me hate you falinshiro. People pleasing masked autistics 💔

dykemithrun

ok toshiro version too since i stole the original image from someone who was talking about him

im-caky

quick voice claim video thingy i made yesterday for the objoys #yay

finding most of the voices was hard as hell i just picked whatever that sounds closest from a youtube playlist

kaitlynillustrations

This piece will be displayed at Boji Gallery in Shibuya, Japan starting July 18 in their summer themed exhibition! I’m so excited to have my work displayed in an area that shaped the fashion that inspires so much of my art!

This watercolor piece was inspired by my childhood summer vacations and the colorful souvenirs I would collect! 🐠🩷

The original painting is available at my Etsy shop, kaitlynillustrations.etsy.com 🎀