access_fandom | Entries tagged with tips and tricks

Whisper, from OpenAI, is an open source speech recognition tool that also does translation. You can try it right now at https://replicate.com/openai/whisper or install it on your own computer to run privately. You provide an audio file, and it emits a text transcript as well as .srt and .vtt subtitle files.

This is a really useful (and free!) tool. I have started using it regularly to make transcripts and captions/subtitles, and I just wrote a blog post to share how, and why -- plus my reflections on the ethics of using it and similar tools trained using machine learning.

Note that it works on existing files, but does not work for live-transcribing an event as it's happening.

jesse_the_k

It’s a cool concept, hides clutter in your room. Also creates barriers.

Zoom virtual backgrounds combine you in the foreground with something nifty in the background. (Think the weather reporter on TV in front of a big US map.) In the past week I've seen the prow of a ship, inside of Tardis, comets, the Hamilton stage and more. Zoom itself says This feature works best with a green screen and uniform lighting, to allow Zoom to detect the difference between you and your background. -- which is not equipment most people have at home!

The Zoom software uses clever algorithms to isolate your outline from what your camera captures. But these algorithms often fail for delicate edges, like hair or hands. Outcome: every movement captured on camera includes Zoom struggling to adjust the edges, which can result in your head and hands sparkling, flashing, or disappearing altogether.

It’s distracting and unpleasant for me when even one user has the virtual background. For some of us with migraine, vestibular issues, brain injury or epilepsy it can be a complete barrier.

Even if the software works perfectly, some of the available backgrounds include so much detail that it overwhelms your image. I can’t read your facial expression, much less your lips. This results in no benefit to using video at all.

Do you have issues with this aspect of Zoom? Are there benefits to the backgrounds that I'm missing?

sasha_feather

Quarries and Corridors (Tumblr)
Interaction Badges.

A photo (described in the post) and explanation of color-coded interaction badges used at a convention for and by autistic people (Autscape).

ETA: Social Skills for Autonomous people

More explanations for the history and usage of these badges.

Red/green is not ideal by itself due to color blindness; therefore symbols can be added.

sasha_feather

lightgetsin: Alt text

The point I'm getting to is if it's a question of utilitarian vs. evocative, I go evocative every time. Descriptions are opinions, yes. So have an opinion! Have fun with it. Embrace the personal nature of describing someone's art or photo. Become a participant in a pretty cool transmedia project.

sasha_feather

Liz Henry: Thank you Allies

The travel lanes and other things like good signs about what was where, meant that I could move around the space, and it was easier for me to participate, talk with other people. It benefited many other people, not just me. It made the space more usable for everyone. Though, I have to hold in my beliefs that improved access for ONE person is enough. To keep asking and going out, I have to belief that I am enough; I deserve it. This last 2 weeks, that belief solidified and expanded inside me. I don’t just deserve to ask and fight. I deserve to be welcome.

Captain Awkward: #478: I use a Wheelchair, and People are Condescending as Fuck [From June 14]

What you’re going for:

Tone: Flat, on a scale between coolly reasonable and Fuck You.
Response: Short.
Apologies & explanations given: Zero.
Fucks given: Zero.

ETA: Content warning for comments, in the "why can't you be nice and educate" variety.

sasha_feather

Just in case, like me, you don't read your DW update unless you have insomnia.

From the update written by denise:

Accessibility Win: Comment Hierarchy

As of the last code push, some of you may have already noticed a major accessibility improvement: explicit comment hierarchy indicators. This is thanks to an incredibly well-thought-out suggestion by

jesse_the_k and heroic development work by

allen. You can now go to the Display tab of Account Settings and check "Display Explicit Comment Hierarchy Indicators (site scheme only)".

If you turn on this option, when viewing comment pages in any site skin, comments will then display an outline-style explicit numbering of comment threads, allowing people who access the site via screenreader and non-graphical browser to see the relationships of comments inside a comment thread. (It will look sort of like a content outline: 0, 1, 1a, 1b, 1b1, 1b2, 1c, 1c1, etc.)

This is a major accessibility win -- one of my screenreader-using friends didn't realize until after using LJ and then DW for about five years how sighted people were figuring out which comments were replies to which -- and one I'm really, really proud of. It took us a while to figure out the best way to do it --

jesse_the_k submitted the suggestion in February of 2010 -- but it just goes to show, once we file a bug for something, it will get added; we won't just give up on it.

As a reminder: Dreamwidth really cares about making the site accessible for you all. If you have an accessibility need that isn't being met, we want to hear about it. Because accessibility needs are different for everybody, and sometimes mutually-exclusive, we might not be able to fix the issue perfectly, but we will do our best to figure out a solution that will work for you. To notify us, you can post an entry to

dw_accessibility, or contact the accessibility team project coordinator,

rb.

sqbr

First: Is there anyone here who uses tumblr and benefits significantly from image/video descriptions? I've been making a small effort to champion them, but apart from the sorts of things that apply intermittently to everyone (A video blocked at your work or country, comics with tiny text etc) my arguments have all been about hypothetical users and it would be useful to (a)Have some evidence against the "but noone who needs descriptions would use a visual medium like tumblr" argument(*) and (b)Get any specific suggestions you guys might have to offer (like: given the fact that long descriptions are often cut off automatically or by rebloggers, is it better to do short ones? Or do you lose too much information?)

Second: With my fanart I've been pitching my descriptions at people who are familiar with canon unless I have some particular reason to think it will be interesting to those who aren't. In general I find writing descriptions quite mentally taxing and, beyond mentioning the names of the characters and canon so that people can google if they like, trying to imagine how to make the image make sense to someone who doesn't know canon without going into a three page backstory is usually too much for me. But since I don't really use image descriptions myself I worry I may be missing something.
( Read more... )

sasha_feather

azurelunatic: Your wish to interact with me is not my obligation to respond (about responding to comments)

stepps: What to do with Dreamwidth: a list of tutorials and information

sasha_feather

hope's post Nerdy PSA: Accessibility Tips for the Casual Coder is a good resource for how to make your blog or website more accessible for screen reader technology. Screen readers are tech that blind or sight-impaired people can use to read the internet (they read text aloud).

What I've done is bookmark this page and open it if I'm constructing a blog post in which I want to pay particular attention to access issues (say for instance one with images, but I try to do work on this generally, little by little). I also picked out a couple of things off hope's list of suggestions to work on, rather than tackling the whole list at once.

---

One in particular that I would like to see more of is descriptive links. Personally I'm much less likely to click on a link if I do not know where it will lead me.

So a non-descriptive link looks like: hey this is cool and pretty!

And a descriptive link looks like: Here is a cool photo on Flickr of some horses

The same link with a title tag: Photo of horses on Flickr (note how there is a text box that appears if you mouse over the link) ETA: See comments for why not to rely on title tags

Another thing to do is just tell the reader somewhere in your post where your links direct. For example. Hey, I like the movie Pitch Black (link goes to IMDB).

----

Here is the code for including a warning that is accessible for a screen reader. (Warnings are for posts/stories that have triggering content or triggering language).

(<a title="Skip this Warning" href="#skip">skip</a>)<span title="This is a spoiler. Highlight to read." style="color:#666;background-color:#666;"> Text-you-want-to-be-hidden-under-the-gray-bar </span><a name="skip"></a>
which creates:
(skip)
Text-you-want-to-be-hidden-under-the-gray-bar

The "skip" link lets a speaking web browser stay silent about the warning.

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Access Fandom

improving disability access in fandom

Whether, why, and how to use Whisper to transcribe speech

Zoom Virtual Backgrounds As Barriers

1 link 17 June 2014

1 link: Alt text and text descriptions

2 links: 25 June 2013

Comment Hierarchy at Dreamwidth

Some questions about image descriptions

2 links 21 April 2010

Making accessible blog posts for screen reader technology

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