Accessible Cold Times

A photo; someone rests their feet on the dashboard of a car with Christmas lights across the ceiling. They have a blanket across their legs and are wearing thick socks. Outside the car there’s a snowy forest.

Sequoia National Park in the winter                           

A fox in the Black Forest, Germany

Why should I write image descriptions?

Image descriptions…

…improve accessibility and enable a broader audience to access or better access your content 

This audience includes

blind and visually-impaired people

people with sensory processing disabilities

people with certain learning disabilities

people with poor internet connections who are unable to load images

…emphasize powerful elements of an image

…clarify confusing graphics

…draw attention to the image itself where people might have otherwise skated past it

Digital accessibility is important. You should provide image descriptions on all content you post and share.

This is true of your blog, but it’s particularly true of any materials you’re creating or presenting for a workshop, class, event, or show.

So, how do I write them?

First, identify for yourself

The most important elements of the image

What context is needed to understand them?

How would you describe this image to someone over the phone?

The goals of the image

What is the image trying to represent?

What are you trying to show your viewer?

Why have you chosen this image?

How does the image accomplish this goal?

In any image description, you should provide

The format (screenshot of a tweet, frame of a television show, comics panel, oil painting, chart, photograph, selfie, video, gifset, etc.)

A basic description of 

the subject of the image 

the subject’s surroundings 

(a fluffy dog on a green lawn, a young person with blue hair smiling in the sun, etc.)

A transcription of any important text (speech bubbles, captions, the text of a conversation, etc.)

Something like a timestamp is not necessary unless it’s relevant to the content.

Remember that even clearly written text in an image file is not readable by a screenreader, so it needs to be transcribed.

A good rule of thumb: If it can be dragged and dropped, it can’t be read by a screenreader and should be treated as an image and therefore transcribed. 

Basic crediting or sourcing if that information is not included in text outside of the image (the name of the person who posted a screenshotted Tumblr post, a Twitter handle, etc.) 

Remember:

Make your image descriptions precise and concise 

Only include relevant information, and don’t get bogged down in little details

…But make sure that you’re precise enough that the description of the image still satisfies the goals of the image itself and isn’t just a haphazard addition

Do not assume gender, race, or pronouns of the subject of an image

Include gender, race, and pronouns only if you are certain they are correct based on other knowledge or if they are mentioned in the image itself (a comic about using they/them pronouns, a screenshot of a show with a character you know, etc)

Transcribe text included in the image! 

I mentioned this above, but it’s the most common mistake I see in writing descriptions. 

Important text in an image (on a sign, in a chat format, in a screenshot or photograph of a book, etc) must be transcribed in the image description

Image descriptions in action on recent posts on my blog

image (image 1), (image 2)

gifset (gifset 1), (gifset 2)

video (video 1), (video 2)

comic (comic 1), (comic 2)

screenshot (screenshot 1), (screenshot 2)

I don’t have any charts or graphs in my recent posts but would be happy to share personal examples if you have questions about this format.

image descriptions, transcripts, captions etc are good starting points for learning about web accessibility. @thequeerwithoutfear​ wrote this post about how to write image descriptions– then it’s mostly just practice from there. there are a lot of posts about this out there and i can answer questions if you have any!

some more easy things you can do if you don’t code are:

make sure your color contrast is high enough. i’m very boring and only ever use black text on a white background. if you go for more edgy color combinations, here’s a color contrast checker (meeting aa requirements should be good enough). light text on a dark background can cause eye strain.

make sure your text is big enough. sure, you think tiny text looks nice, but personally, i think things are much more aesthetic when you can actually read them. i think the rule of thumb is don’t use a font size smaller than like 10px? don’t quote me on that.

you can run into problems when it comes to tumblr themes because of the inherent restrictions of the platform and what you can actually find. use your best judgment

discord isn’t screenreader accessible. i mention this because a lot of people don’t seem to know this and it annoys me.

no, just because you have one blind friend who can use it doesn’t mean all blind people can use it.

if you have a site, here’s an accessibility widget! it requires no web coding knowledge to install on your website and allows people to toggle font size, color contrast, etc

if you do code, i strongly recommend webaim.org when it comes to accessible web design. the articles are really well written and not overly technical, its a wonderful resource

i’m not sure that it’s possible to make a site accessible to absolutely everyone. just like offline accessibility, there are always needs you won’t know about, some people have clashing needs, sometimes there’s stuff that you can’t figure out how to implement, especially if you’re just one person. i think what’s important is trying to be aware of and accommodating for as many needs as you can.

i think accessible design is aesthetic. i find usability sexy. you don’t need to read the entire wcag to care about this! i still haven’t! do what you can, think critically about web design, and keep learning and talking about accessibility.