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Wed, 26 Jun 2024 20:44:24 +0200 last edited: Thu, 27 Jun 2024 23:10:28 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

Poll: Is it ableist to not always cater to absolutely everyone's requirements by 100%?

Please boost for a larger sample size.

(Hint: It's often impossible to perfectly satisfy everyone because what some people require can be bad for others.)

#Poll #Ableist #Ableism #Inclusion #Inclusivity #A11y #Accessibility #AccessibilityMatters

Yes, you must always fulfill everyone's needs

0 Votes | 0%

No, but you must find the perfect mixture

5 Votes | 42%

No, perfect is the enemy of good

6 Votes | 50%

No, who cares for those in need

1 Vote | 8%

12 Votes in total
Poll has ended

show all 14 comments

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 20:52:29 +0200

FeralRobots

FeralRobots@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland
As someone with digital accessibility in their porfolio of responsibilities, I would say 'no.' & I'd also say that I can't remember it ever being an issue. I would go so far as to say that if someone is demanding perfect conformance with, say, WCAG, you're dealing with someone who doesn't really understand the point of digital accessibility. Demanding perfect WCAG conformance is tantamount to demanding people give up.

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 20:54:01 +0200

boiert

boiert@mastodon.xyz

@jupiter_rowland They should care themselves getting the necessary support, and that is possible

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 20:58:12 +0200

FeralRobots

FeralRobots@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland
It's a question of context - which includes one's goals.
Image descriptions are a good example: They should include the stuff that's contextually relevant to why you're using that image. Based on the examples I've seen experienced blind accessibility professionals use, the description on this post would be a good example of appropriate detail in context: https://pixelfed.social/p/garryknight/711640534174995883

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 21:01:44 +0200

FeralRobots

FeralRobots@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland
One could obviously choose to do more - but one could also be asking onesself both whether it's really relevant to a blind person's experience, & whether one's 'more' is part of what one's trying to communicate. In that example, Garry's picking the things he thinks are important about his photo, and telling us about them.
It's never going to be perfect - but then, pictures aren't perfect in that way, either. I see lots of pictures that include details I don't care about.

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 23:57:38 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@FeralRobots Image descriptions are mostly why I've started the poll.

I rarely post images for a specific detail in them, if ever. And even if I did, due to the nature of my images, people might still be interested in details that are not relevant for the post. Anything and everything in my images may be interesting for someone out there.

At the same time and for the same reason, there's hardly anything in my images that a casual audience would understood just like so with absolutely no explanation, nothing that someone who can't see the image would know right off the bat what it looks like without a description.

If I described my images in 200 characters or less, I'd leave everyone standing in the rain. The image description would be useless except for those who are familiar with what my image shows. And these are rare, fewer than one in 200,000 Fediverse users.

I can't simply mention whatever my images show. I always expect those who can't see the image to immediately start inquiring, "Yeah, but what does it look like?" And if I mention something that doesn't exist in real life, I expect everyone to ask, "And what is that? What is it for? What does it do?"

So I have to explain stuff, and I have to describe the looks of stuff.

I even have to explain where the image was taken. I can't name-drop the location. Telling people where the image is from always inevitably takes me over 1,000 characters alone, that's how obscure it is.

And then there are text transcripts. Accessibility rules, especially here in the Fediverse, demand that if there's text within the borders of an image, it must be transcribed.

Now, in my images, text often happens to be so small that it's illegible in the image itself as posted by me. Sometimes it's so tiny that it's invisible, but it's technically still present within the borders of the image. Or it's partially obscured by something in front of it.

I can still read it almost always. I don't describe my images by looking at the images. I describe them by looking at the real deal which mostly gives me a nigh-infinite zoom factor with almost no loss of quality. And if I can read it, I can transcribe it, and I have no excuse not to transcribe it.

Also, the text transcript rule has no exception for illegible text. Thus, I have to suppose that text must always be transcribed if it can be read somewhere, regardless of whether it's legible in the image or not. And so I may end up with several dozen individual text transcripts.

All in all, a typical full and detailed image description written by me is usually a five-digit number of characters long. And it goes into the post text body. Such a description should leave no immediate question unanswered.

My current record image post: One image, two days for writing the description, a little over 1,400 characters of short visual description in the alt-text, over 60,000 characters of full description in the post. And I actually had to limit myself. Had I pulled all the same stops as the previous times I've described images, had I gone into full detail about all the images within this image, it would have taken me weeks to describe this image, and I might have ended up with over a million characters.

I've actually read that neurodiverse people often need highly detailed image descriptions to understand images. And I've been told by one or two neurodiverse Fediverse users that they found my mammoth descriptions useful.

At the same time, however, it may take an hour to read them. And it may take a screen reader an hour to read them aloud. I don't know how many blind or visually-impaired people or people with bad mobile Internet connections have the patience to go through something that long.

I've actually also received feedback that my descriptions are way too long.

So here's the catch:

A normally-sized image description (200 characters) would lack so much information that it's useless. Thus, it's ableist.
An image description that's informative enough (tens of thousands of characters) is so long that it's useless because many don't have the time or patience or attention span for it. Thus, it's ableist.
To anything in-between, both applies. It's too long, and it's not informative enough. Thus, it's ableist.

The logical conclusion is that it's automatically ableist to post images showing too niche, too obscure content because they can impossibly be described in a way that isn't ableist. The only way to not be ableist would be to refrain from posting such images in the first place.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Ableist #Ableism #Inclusion #Inclusivity #A11y #Accessibility #AccessibilityMatters

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 05:38:07 +0200

Distinctivestatic

distinctivestatic@goblin.band

A person with sound sensitivity and a person who needs constant background noise to focus are never going to be at the same level of comfort in the same area. Yes, certain amounts of accessibility can be made- headphones or earplugs. But that gets more complex with ideas like light, or even breathing (hot, humid clubs come to mind).

Pure accessibility is impossible. You do your best and then try to have a variety of things available, so those who miss out on the Loud Noise Event can go to the Quiet Lightshow. Etc.

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 07:54:25 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Distinctivestatic But what about Fediverse posts? I've got the impression that 100% accessibility for everyone has become an absolute requirement here. And I can't send them to different target audiences depending on their accessibility requirements.

For example, there are people who need highly detailed and thus extremely long image descriptions with lots of explanations. On the other hand, there are people for whom exactly these image descriptions are useless because they're too long. I can impossibly satisfy both sides, also because in my case, "highly detailed" means far longer than most Mastodon users can even imagine to be possible.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Inclusion #Inclusivity #A11y #Accessibility #AccessibilityMatters

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 08:05:21 +0200

Elena Brescacin

talksina@mastodon.uno

@jupiter_rowland I'm currently using the MastodonUno Italian instance which provides 500 characters posts, but I'm planning to switch permanently to my @writefreely which suits a blog rather than a microblog needs, as I think #fediverse should give us the chance to learn reading again. On the other hand, I'm one of those #blind users who analyzes the cases without boolean philosophy "true/false": in some case #AltText is useful long, in others short. #accessibility is plural

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 08:34:37 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Elena Brescacin Well, I guess I'm an extreme edge case here.

My latest alt-text is precisely 1,500 characters long, using up the limit imposed by Mastodon, Misskey and their forks. A bit over 1,400 of these are image description. Most Mastodon users would consider this absolutely excessive. Many would consider it much, much too long to ever read. I consider it severely lacking, and it's actually only there to satisfy those who demand there be an image description in the alt-text, no matter what. It doesn't even transcribe any text, nor does it explain anything.

The actual full image description with explanations and with text transcripts is in the post. I'm not posting from Mastodon right now, and where I am, there isn't really a character limit. I can and do post images with descriptions that are much, much, much longer than what fits into alt-text.

What my images show is so obscure that it really needs a lot of explanations. It also needs very detailed visual descriptions because I can't expect anyone who can't see the image to know what anything in the image looks like, but I do expect people to be curious about it.

Lastly, I take text transcripts very seriously. I even transcribe text that's so small that it can't be read in the image or text that's partially obscured in the image. This can lead to all text transcripts put together exceeding 1,500 characters. I've had images with over 20 pieces of text to transcribe.

All in all, my image descriptions regularly reach five-digit character counts.

In my opinion, descriptions of my images are only useful at this level of detail and at this staggering length. Otherwise they'd lack too much information to still be useful. At the same time, they're useless again because nobody is willing to read them.

If I shortened them to a few thousand characters, they'd become useless because I would have to leave out information that may be critical to understand the image. At the same time, they'd still be useless due to still being too long.

The closer I came to the 200-characters mark, the more people would be willing to read them or have them read to them, but the more useless they'd become because more and more information would have to be cut.

I couldn't describe what anything looks like. I couldn't explain anything. I couldn't even say where the image is from because that alone requires over 1,000 characters. And I couldn't transcribe any text in the image which easily checks an ableism mark.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Ableist #Ableism #Inclusion #Inclusivity #A11y #Accessibility #AccessibilityMatters

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 14:49:49 +0200

Distinctivestatic

distinctivestatic@goblin.band

In that case I'm gonna say "variety". Vary them. That way people who need either/or can have access to some posts even if they don't get access to all. It's better than choosing one and then a group having access to no posts.

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 16:54:08 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Distinctivestatic That'd still lock people out of every other image post and leave them disgruntled.

Maybe it'd be a better strategy to post everything at least twice and then cross-reference between the posts.

#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Inclusion #Inclusivity #A11y #Accessibility #AccessibilityMatters

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 18:06:43 +0200

Der Pepe (Hubzilla) ⁂ ⚝

pepecyb@hub.hubzilla.hu

@Jupiter Rowland Real question: How high is the proportion of your contacts who would somehow be "excluded" due to incomplete picture descriptions?

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 18:09:54 +0200

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Der Pepe (Hubzilla) It isn't only about my immediate contacts.

I do all this just as well for people who happen upon my posts in their federated timelines.

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 20:04:00 +0200

Der Pepe (Hubzilla) ⁂ ⚝

pepecyb@hub.hubzilla.hu

Ok, if you feel the need, then that's fine. I'm more pragmatic and tell myself that I can't consider every conceivable case.