Can you also consider writing a description of the graphs and charts, for people who cannot see them? Blind people do have screen reading software that converts text into speech for them (or braille, via a refreshable braille display), but it only works when the computer recognizes it is looking at text and not an image. Thanks.
I did consider this, but in the end I decided against it, because it would essentially mean writing up a table of the results to go with each chart (some of which have 30 or so words and bars, most of which most people will not be interested in), and the table of statistical results is available in the Google Sheet, which is linked in each blog post.
Each blog post does have a summary of the top 5 words and percentages, and in the case of the “words over time” chart there’s a bit of a description of the notable long-term shifts in popularity.
So overall I feel like visually impaired people have access to all the same information.
Would a book review be an acceptable submission? I'm terrible with art, and don't think I have software for producing art in my home computer in any case. But I did recently write a book review about a book with a deaf character. (I am myself a Deaf/deaf person) Thanks!
@andreashettle replied to your video “Okay I THINK this is a little better? “I” [negation] “sign” “good”...”
Yes, the grammar in this one is better
xoxoxoxo
As a Deaf person are there any phrases I should be learning, in your opinion? Right now my phrases are based on interactions with campus staff at Gallaudet when attending events that are put on by hearing ppl on campus. I’m trying to slowly build up to fluency using phrases instead of just vocabulary words, because I’m more likely to practice that way. (Though I mainly practice by chattering at my dog- she’s judgmental but not about my signing. And she’s learning her commands in ASL too. Right now I’m reinforcing “lay [down]” “Find [person, usually grandma]” and “follow [person, usually grandma]”.)
I try to be autistic/autism friendly at my blog. I don't know if the theme I'm using right now is accessible -- do you have advice on which themes are accessible to the widest range of users and access needs? Thanks.
your theme is pretty good to be honest. most of the free pre-set themes are pretty good.
But! I’m going to put some more tips and stuff under a read more because why not. and the theme I’m using is actually named “accessible” as it was made to be accessible in general to at least most. link here. - (warning - there’s like a dancing egg loading page, just wait for a bit)
1) Font matters. I’ve found that the font Verdana is pretty good in general, it’s largely accepted as a dyslexia-friendly font, is bigger than most fonts, and it’s fun to say honestly. Comic sans is dyslexia friendly in general, but it’s annoying to some and is seen as “unprofessional”, but it comes on most computers so if you can’t find another font, it’s a fair bet. List of dyslexia friendly fonts below.
2) colors -bright colors can hurt some people’s eyes, though others have their eyes hurt due to the pure saturation of darker colors, and it’s different from person to person so there’s really no 1 way to do it. Ideally, one would make a theme where the viewer could choose the background they see, but that’s some pretty complex coding
3) Breaking up text can help. Some people, such as myself, cannot read blocks of text. Smaller chunks, like lists, bullet points, and things split into your basic 3-5 or 5-8 (depending on who you ask) sentence paragraphs tend to be easier
4) Bolding for emphasis and summaries. I not only have my attention drawn to bold text (usually the most important part), but I also use it as checkpoints. like, ok I read that bolded part, if I get lost I can start there again. And summaries help those of us who can’t focus to read anyway. the general format of tl;dr is pretty good as most recognize it as a summary even if we don’t know what tl;dr means (too long ; didnt read)
5) Italicizing can make things either more or less difficult to read something. Generally, I use italicizing as a different form of emphasis as bolding. Bolding tends to highlight the main points for me, while italicizing tends to simply imply that my brain put stress on the word when I “said” it
5) Avoid typing in all caps. it really bothers a lot of people, as it’s generally used as “yelling” through text, and for some it makes it extremely hard to read (hint: me). I tend to replace “all caps” emphasis with bold and italics emphasis. works about the same.
dyslexia friendly fonts:
verdana, comic sans, lexia readable (created to be dyslexia friendly, download here), century gothic, calibri, myriad pro, trebuchet MS, geneva, and arial
okay that’s all I have for now! Anyone can add on, correct, etc...
I try to include image descriptions at least sometimes. (not as often as I should). But I don't have a lot of experience, so I am not always sure if I am including too much info, or too little, or if it's clear enough, or in the right order. Are there resources online that help explain how to write better image descriptions, with examples? Perhaps a blind person could analyze a few image descriptions (mine or other people's) to explain what is good and what could be improved.
Yes, there are! I’m afraid I did my googling on this a couple of years ago, so I can’t quite remember what pages I read, but there is this helpful guide.To summarize, the goal of your description is to inform anyone who can’t view the images of what’s going on. So if your image is a picture of a flyer, you’ll probably just be fine with the text on it, with no need to mention what color the paper is. For a pretty nature scene, more detail is usually better.If it’s a choice between the briefest of descriptions (”picture of [name]”) or no description because you aren’t able to at the moment or find you can’t accurately describe the picture, go with the brief description. You can edit later, or perhaps someone else will improve upon it.Not all details are necessary. For example, when it’s a tweet, I rarely include the time. The timestamp you see in a picture will only tell you when the tweet occurred in the screencapper’s timezone, which isn’t useful info for everyone. But it might be necessary if you’re wanting to put tweets in order and/or figure out when each occurred. Exact times and dates are the kind of thing you might need for a news story, but not for a funny tweet.The link above does get mention the problem of the person writing the description essentially choosing what’s important enough to convey to other people. I don’t have a solution for this, but it’s something to keep in mind when you’re deciding what to include and what to leave out. As I have no trouble viewing image descriptions, I’m going off my own experience writing image descriptions and things I have read on the subject here. If you’d like to weigh in/correct any info/give some tips on what kind of image descriptions help you, please feel free!
By now you might have seen the email that Barbara Trader from TASH circulated on the NDLA list server this morning, but she states that TASH has not changed it's position on facilitated communication and is not considering making a change in its position. Their statement on the right to communicate is on the TASH website (under the "About Us" pull down menu, select "Resolutions", on the Resolutions page click communication rights down at the bottom)
