kestrell | Entries tagged with accessible docs

Researchers have created prototypes that enable screen-reader users to quickly and easily navigate through multiple levels of information in an online chart.
Adam Zewe | MIT News Office
June 2, 2022

https://news.mit.edu/2022/data-visualization-accessible-blind-0602

Data visualizations on the web are largely inaccessible for blind and low-vision individuals who use screen readers, an assistive technology that reads on-screen elements as text-to-speech. This excludes millions of people from the opportunity to probe and interpret insights that are often presented through charts, such as election results, health statistics, and economic indicators.

When a designer attempts to make a visualization accessible, best practices call for including a few sentences of text that describe the chart and a link to the underlying data table — a far cry from the rich reading experience available to sighted users.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from MIT and elsewhere is striving to create screen-reader-friendly data visualizations that offer a similarly rich experience. They prototyped several visualization structures that provide text descriptions at varying levels of detail, enabling a screen-reader user to drill down from high-level data to more detailed information using just a few keystrokes.

The MIT team embarked on an iterative co-design process with collaborator Daniel Hajas, a researcher at University College London who works with the Global Disability Innovation Hub and lost his sight at age 16. They collaborated to develop prototypes and ran a detailed user study with blind and low-vision individuals to gather feedback.

....The researchers defined three design dimensions as key to making accessible visualizations: structure, navigation, and description. Structure involves arranging the information into a hierarchy. Navigation refers to how the user moves through different levels of detail. Description is how the information is spoken, including how much information is conveyed.

Using these design dimensions, they developed several visualization prototypes that emphasized ease-of-navigation for screen-reader users. One prototype, known as multiview, enabled individuals to use the up and down arrows to navigate between different levels of information (like the chart title as the top level, the legend as the second level, etc.), and the right and left arrow keys to cycle through information on the same level (such as adjacent scatterplots). Another prototype, known as target, included the same arrow key navigation but also a drop-down menu of key chart locations so the user could quickly jump to an area of interest.

“Our goal is not just to work within existing standards to make them serviceable. We really set out to do grounded speculation and imagine where we can push what is possible with these existing standards. We didn’t want to limit ourselves to refitting tools that were designed for images,” says Zong.

The Hidden Image Descriptions Making the Internet Accessible
Three different alt text examples over a blank box.
Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, the Mona Lisa.
A painting of a person.
May be an image of one person and strawberry.
Mona_Lisa,_by_Leonardo_da_Vinci,_from_C2RMF_retouched.jpg
Example alt text descriptions from Microsoft Word, Facebook and Wikipedia.

Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, the Mona Lisa.
By Meg Miller and Ilaria Parogni
Feb. 18, 2022
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/18/arts/alt-text-images-descriptions.html?smid=em-share

The text boxes above are examples of alt text, which people who are blind or have low vision often rely on when navigating the web. When it’s available, the text can be detected and read aloud or translated into Braille through screen readers, assistive technology that can be accessed in the form of software programs, apps or even browser extensions. For these users, alt text is essential to the online experience.

But it is not always available, or even helpful. Haben Girma, a lawyer and disability rights advocate, said she frequently comes across words like “‘image,” “jpg” or “graphics” when navigating the web with a screen reader. “That doesn’t tell me anything,” she added.

And in an image-saturated world — over 63 million were uploaded to Instagram alone in a single day in February, according to
Internet Live Stats
https://www.internetlivestats.com/
— it can be difficult for people who are blind or have low vision to fully experience the web.

Three alt text examples for an image of pancakes.
Five small pancakes on a plate topped with raspberries, blueberries, lemon zest and syrup.
May be an image of fruit.
A slice of pizza sitting on top of a white plate.
A plate of pancakes with fruit.
Examples of A.I.-generated alt text from Facebook, Alt Text Chrome Extension and Microsoft Word.

Five small pancakes on a plate topped with raspberries, blueberries, lemon zest and syrup.
Partly in response to this changing landscape, disability rights advocates, people with vision-related disabilities and technologists alike have been coming up with ways to increase the presence and the quality of alt text.

Alt text is usually tucked away in a web page’s HTML code, the language that defines how information will appear on a browser. Screen readers can access the information and translate it into a format that users can interact with, but for those without the assistive technology, alt text would not be apparent.

A kitten at the window.

This is the code that contains the image’s alt text. Here’s what a screen reader would sound like when encountering this image.

Many social media platforms have features that enable people to add alt text to their posts manually. On sites that permit a longer word count on posts, like Instagram, people may even include the description of the image they are sharing in the caption accompanying it.

Despite the presence of these options, the practice remains little known and mystifying to many.

One analysis of a million homepages, by
WebAIM,
https://webaim.org/projects/million/
a nonprofit organization affiliated with Utah State University that focuses on web accessibility, found that as of February 2021, 60.6 percent had instances of missing alt text. A Carnegie Mellon
study
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jbigham/pubs/pdfs/2019/twitter-alt-text.pdf
in 2019 of 1.09 million tweets with images found that only 0.1 percent of those tweets included alt text. (The New York Times has been working on rolling out alt text for its images.)

Three alt text examples for one image containing President Joe Biden.
President Joe Biden, wearing a medical mask, walking down a flight of stairs out of a green helicopter. Three men in uniform salute him with their right arms from the ground.
May be an image of 5 people, people standing and outdoors.
A group of people standing next to a train.
A group of men standing next to a helicopter.
Examples of A.I.-generated alt text from Facebook, Alt-Text Chrome Extension and Microsoft Word.

President Joe Biden, wearing a medical mask, walking down a flight of stairs out of a green helicopter. Three men in uniform salute him with their right arms from the ground.
In Search of Solutions
Some companies have turned to artificial intelligence to increase the presence of alt text. Microsoft and Google have both developed features that use A.I. to automatically generate alt text. In 2016,
Facebook debuted its own “automatic alt text,”
https://engineering.fb.com/2016/04/04/ios/under-the-hood-building-accessibility-tools-for-the-visually-impaired-on-facebook/
which uses A.I. to identify objects in images, which it also added to Instagram in 2018. (Instagram Stories does not have an option for alt text.) Cynthia Bennett, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, who is blind and uses a screen reader, said that artificial intelligence and automation have enabled alt text to be generated much more widely. But the descriptions she comes across, she added, “tend to not be very high quality.”

A.I.-generated text can indeed be puzzling: “I have been in situations where the A.I. will say, ‘A person holding a gun,’ and that person is not holding a gun,” Girma said. “The A.I. got confused. Or it says, ‘A child in a chair.’ But it’s not a child; it’s an adult.”

An industry has also sprung up to address issues of quality and scale, with some companies taking a human-based approach and others working on auto-generated alt text.

One company, Scribely, offers alt text written by people. Its chief executive, Caroline Desrosiers, said that while A.I. can identify objects, humans are far better at deciding which parts of an image are important to describe. Also, she said, “Alt text needs to be short and succinct, so we have to make a call on which details that we choose to highlight.”

The start-up CloudSight focuses instead on mustering the power of algorithms. Brad Folkens, the chief executive and co-founder of the company, said that its A.I. had to rely on human review in its early stages of development, to ensure the quality of its descriptions. But, he added, the technology has since evolved to be able to function independently. It “does a good enough job” for CloudSight’s clients, he said. (The company still offers human-reviewed services at a premium.)

Some disability rights advocates say that A.I. alt text is improving — yet still often misses the context and what Chancey Fleet, a disability rights advocate and tech educator, calls the “emotional valence” of a human description. “For example, a photo from a Black Lives Matter protest would be something like ‘people street demonstration,’” Fleet said, “and that just does not suffice in moments of importance.”

Three alt text examples for one image of the Poler Napsack.
A bright red sleeping bag with drawstrings near the base, a retractable hood, a front pocket and zipper that spans the top half of the sleeping bag.
The our pick for the best wearable lleeping bag the Poler Napsack.
a person holding a pair of skis in the snow.
A picture containing work-clothing.
Alt text examples from Wirecutter, The New York Times’s product recommendation service; Alt Text Chrome Extension; and Microsoft Word.

A bright red sleeping bag with drawstrings near the base, a retractable hood, a front pocket and zipper that spans the top half of the sleeping bag.
The Push for Alt Text
The inclusion of alt text is a no-brainer to those championing its consistent, wider use.

Some observers, like Thomas Reid, a voice actor and podcast host who is blind, say that social media is helping them broadcast their message and make people more aware. “We’re having these conversations in public, and it’s easy to jump into them,” Reid said.

Girma, who is blind, regularly uses her Instagram and Twitter accounts to invite others to write alt text for the images they post online, as well as to share suggestions on
how to craft alt text
https://twitter.com/habengirma/status/1279546896218873857
and to
direct followers to useful resources.
https://twitter.com/habengirma/status/1345809172298780674
“You don’t need to describe every leaf and detail. Write one or two sentences describing the main point of the image,” the caption of one of
her Instagram posts reads.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CJmEVyRMzRV/

She is not the only one providing detailed advice on social media.
In a Twitter post
https://twitter.com/BlondeHistorian/status/1422287809524678663
, a blind activist, Amy Kavanagh, advises her followers to think about context: “If it’s a fashion picture, tell me about the clothes. If it’s a group photo, I don’t need every outfit described.”

Imani Barbarin, a communications professional and disability rights advocate, uses
her TikTok account
https://www.tiktok.com/@crutches_and_spice/video/6951479973194632453?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&lang=en
to urge others in her industry to include alt text in their resources for brands and nonprofits: “That’s part of your job,” she says in one video, “you have to include it.”

Alt text from Getty Images for a stock photo hosted there.
A diverse group of five people in office attire looking up at the camera, smiling, raising their fists.
Teamwork saves the day : Stock Photo
a group of people standing next to each other.
A group of people jumping.
Examples of alt text from Getty Images, Alt-Text Chrome Extension and Microsoft Word.

A diverse group of five people in office attire looking up at the camera, smiling, raising their fists.
The artists Bojana Coklyat and Shannon Finnegan have taken a robust approach with
Alt Text as Poetry
https://alt-text-as-poetry.net/
— a website, workbook and series of workshops — in their effort to encourage the use of alt text among artists and on social media.

“When you’re online or on Instagram to have fun or feel a sense of belonging, and you’re constantly getting these dry, minimal descriptions, it takes away from that delight or pleasure,” said Coklyat, who has low vision.

Finnegan and Coklyat said that when people use expressive or playful alt text on social media, in either the HTML or written into a caption, they can expose others to the practice, and inspire them to try it.
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Kes: Does anyone else equate "remediation" with "rehabilitation" and picture little juvenile delinquent PDF docs in leather jackets smoking ciggies? Just me? 'kay then.

This is a webinar being presented by TPGI, formerly the Paciello Group

Important Aspects of PDF Remediation
Presented on July 14, 2021 at 12pm ET
PDFs and other electronic documents are essential elements for online communication. As we strive to create an accessible digital experience for all users, we must not neglect the electronic documents hosted on websites. Ensuring such documents are accessible is a critical aspect of a comprehensive, accessible experience.
Our introductory webinar will provide a high-level overview of how to remediate electronic documents (specifically PDFs) for accessibility.
We will review the fundamental concepts of PDF remediation and techniques that you can implement in your documents upon completion of the webinar. A live Q & A will follow the presentation.
Register for the webinar below
Webinar, July 14: Important Aspects of PDF Remediation - TPGi

Yesterday I was browsing the MIT IAP schedule of courses, I found this

Alt-Text as Poetry Workshop

Bojana Coklyat and Shannon Finnegan will lead a group work session to dig into our collective backlog of alt-text writing for websites or social media. We can share what were working on, ask questions, and learn from each other.

If you are brand new to writing alt-text, we recommend reading Section 2 of Bojana and Shannon's workbook (available on their website https://alt-text-as-poetry.net/ ).

Alt-text is an essential part of web accessibility, making visual content accessible through short textual descriptions for blind and low-vision people who use screen reading software to access digital content. Alt-text is often overlooked altogether or understood through the lens of compliance, as an unwelcome burden to be met with minimum effort.
How can we instead approach alt-text thoughtfully and creatively, while still prioritizing alt-text as an accessibility practice?
In this workshop, led by Bojana Coklyat and Shannon Finnegan, we will reframe alt-text as a type of poetry and practice writing it together. We will look at examples of poetic and creative approaches to alt-text, then do several writing exercises designed to focus on issues that often come up in alt-text, including attention to language and word economy, alt-text as translation, structuring and prioritizing, subjectivity, identity, and representation.

You can find more information on what alt-text is, and how we can practice it as poetry, on Bojana and Shannon's website
https://alt-text-as-poetry.net/

Kes: note that this project is a collaboration between artists Bojana Coklyat and Shannon Finnegan, supported by Eyebeam and the Disability Visibility Project.

“
Here is an online recording of one of their workshops:
Alt-text as Poetry” workshop (ASL accessible) on Vimeo
https://vimeo.com/419009970

Lastly, here is a great interview which describes some of their art installations which address the the inaccessibility of art and museum space.

Accessibility in Inaccessible Spaces: An Interview with Shannon Finnegan
by Emily McDermott // Nov. 10, 2020
Berlin Art ONLINE MAGAZINE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
http://www.berlinartlink.com/2020/11/10/accessibility-interview-shannon-finnegan/

Excerpt:

Most recently, the artist began addressing accessibility in digital space through a series of creative workshops about alt-text (text entered into the backend of websites or on social media platforms to enable screen-readers to access visually-driven content) created in collaboration with artist, activist and scholar Bojana Coklyat. To a disabled audience, some of Finnegan’s subject matter might seem like old news, but they see their work as a building block within a much larger ecosystem. Their work, they say, “is interdependent with work by many other disabled artists and thinkers. It is part of a specific network and lineage.” In this interview, Finnegan speaks about this ecosystem, their disability-centering practice and how artists and institutions can--and should--change the ways they think about accessibility.

If you miss the Carroll Center virtual tech fair on Nov. 24,
You can access content from the fair, including an archived recording of the entire event as well as resources from the informational workshops.
Through the links on the
Virtual Technology Fair event page
https://bit.ly/VirtualTechFair

Election day is less than one week away. The voices of people who are blind or visually impaired need to be heard in this and every election.
In Massachusetts, voters with disabilities have accessible voting options. There are accommodations, hotlines and other resources available to make sure your vote is counted.
A judgment was recently passed in Massachusetts for fully electronic voting to ensure accessible vote-by-mail for voters with disabilities. This new process will allow a voter with a disability who has been authorized to use the online portal to obtain their ballot, mark, and submit their ballot electronically.
Find out more specific information about voting in Massachusetts online here.
https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleidx.htm?bblinkid=244559858&bbemailid=25356467&bbejrid=1701543866

Foursquare Launches Location-Based Virtual Audio Guide for AirPods
OCTOBER 26, 2020 7:26 AM

Foursquare is releasing an audio-only virtual assistant platform called Marsbot for AirPods that will play snippets into your earbuds based on your location and let you record your own for others to hear. The idea is to add an audio guide to wherever you happen to be.
Read more at
https://coolblindtech.com/foursquare-launches-location-based-virtual-audio-guide-for-airpods/?bblinkid=244561950&bbemailid=25356467&bbejrid=1701543866

Improve Your Technology Skills with eCarroll Courses During Thanksgiving Break
eCarroll Remote Technology Instruction brings technology training directly to blind and visually impaired individuals with the convenience of attending from virtually anywhere.
Discover a few of the special courses we’re offering during Thanksgiving break below
• Format Your Word Document Like A Pro (Full-Day Course)
https://carroll.org/events/format-your-word-document-like-a-pro-ecarroll/?bblinkid=244559163&bbemailid=25356467&bbejrid=1701543866
• Zoom Short Course (Three-Hour Course)
https://carroll.org/events/zoom-short-course-ecarroll/?bblinkid=244559164&bbemailid=25356467&bbejrid=1701543866

Carroll Center Virtual Technology Fair
Nov 24, 2020 09:30 AM to 12 PM Eastern
Explore the latest technologies during live product demonstrations of assistive technology designed specifically for blind and visually impaired individuals, chat directly with your favorite exhibitor representatives in breakout rooms and find products and services you need to live as independently as possible.
Workshops include: TAKING THE MYSTERY OUT OF PDF ACCESSIBILITY and ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORMS from an accessibility perspective
Registration now open
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-3pla6KFR1WP4M8sm5dhcA?bblinkid=244569212&bbemailid=25356467&bbejrid=1701543866

So, funny story:
I haven't been able to read this article
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/style/disability-accessibility-coronavirus.html

Another person with a disability (but who is sighted) sent an email with the NY Times link in it but, all I can access when I get to the NY Times website is the option to subscribe--maybe it's an overlay?--but I can't find a way to dismiss it or find a link to login with my username and password.

The email also included a link to a pdf download on Apple iCloud, which I did but, when I click on the file in my directory, absolutely nothing happens: the file doesn't open, acrobat doesn't open, Jaws doesn't say anything.

Some days I wonder why I even f***ing bother.

David is one of the technology instructors at the Carroll Center for the Blind, and I had three very full days of instruction with him earlier this summer. Even if you are a proficient screen reader user, David probably knows alternate ways of performing the same task, some of them maybe even faster and easier. I already bought his new book, because I want to learn NVDA.

Here's the Tech Talk info:

Tek Talk welcomes David Kingsbury, an Assistive Technology Instructor at The Carroll Center for the Blind. Topic: David Kingsbury will discuss his new book: “When One Web Browser Is Not Enough: A Guide for Windows Screen Reader Users.”

August 24, 2020
Time: 8:00 pm Eastern.
David Kingsbury, an Assistive Technology Instructor at The Carroll Center for the Blind in Massachusetts, has recently written a book entitled “When One Web Browser Is Not Enough: A Guide for Windows Screen Reader Users.” Published by the Carroll Center, the book is intended to help JAWS, NVDA, and Narrator users to effectively use the four leading web browsers - Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge - in ways that build on the strengths of each of them.

During the August 24 Tek Talk episode, he will discuss:
• His current work as an assistive technology instructor.
• Why he wrote the book.
• Brief overview of tools and techniques covered in the book, and
• Some of his favorite tools that create synergies between the browsers.
The book is available in Word format for $20. If you are interested in ordering a copy, go to:
https://carroll.org/product/when-one-web-browser-is-not-enough/

Date: Monday August 24, 2020
Time: 5 pm Pacific, 6 pm Mountain, 7 pm Central, 8 pm Eastern and throughout the world, Tuesday 0:00 GMT.
Zoom invitation
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