#screen readers

When a post on here has lots of emojis, special fonts/text or lots of keysmashes, what is a way to tag those posts so that you guys don't have to sit there listening to nonsense for a minute straight?

Hi! Thank you for the question.

So, in general, most of the time, a screen reader can find the “read more“ button/link and successfully activate it. And, the majority of the time, we can then subsequently read the rest of the post after activating the read more.

However, I want to put heavy emphasis when I say “most of the time.“ Tumblr is notoriously known for being barely usable with a screen reader at best and actively hostile to screen reader users at worst, and there are inconsistencies galore as well as frequent accessibility breaking updates. There are times when I have been able to access a read more one day, and then log on the very next day and find that I am totally unable to find it at all. There are other days where one post allows me to activate it just fine, but another gives me so much trouble that I give up And log off for the day completely in frustration.

For these reasons, as well as several others, it is almost always universally recommended to not put an image description under a read more. The image description should always be in the standard body of the post, and/or in the alt text.

The other big reason why it’s not great to put an image description under a read more is that if you delete your blog, that read more can no longer be activated, so that image description is gone forever even if others can still re-blog other versions of the post.

And, lastly, putting an image description under a read more simply just creates extra steps for disabled Tumblr users that non-disabled users don’t have to do to get access to the post and its content. We are often already doing so many extra steps just to use the website as a whole because of how inaccessible so much of it is, and putting more barriers in the way means that far fewer Blind people are likely to ever see that image description. Or if we do see that post and notice that you have put a description under a read more, we might already be out of spoons for the day and clicking that read more is just another tiring frustration. The description should be readily available And as easy to access as the original image is for fully sighted users if you want to create a truly equitable experience.

One of my biggest pet peeves in the TMA RP community and the TMA fandom in general is when people make non screenreader-friendly blogs/posts.

Like. You're in the "this story was formatted to work specifically with audio and nothing else" fandom. Which will no doubt draw an audience of blind people, who cannot see, and thus use a screenreader.

Of ALL the communities to not be screenreader friendly!!

I'm not even blind or anything- I mean I'm dyslexic but it's not that bad- it just really grinds my gears because I at the very least go out of my way to filter everything by whether or not it's screenreader friendly in tags.

(On my main there was a period where I stopped doing that because I was really depressed and just hit the reblog button without adding tags cause I couldn't muster up the motivation but I eventually fixed that.)

Sometimes I'll add plain text and image IDs in reblogs. I always post in plain text unless someone else ruins that first.

Just like. Why. It's so easy. At the very least, tag your shit.

A big thing that's helped me feel more comfortable accommodating my disability is finding accessibility tools that reflect my personality / interests.

I should put a disclaimer that making disability "aesthetic" should not be the most important thing about your health! I do this where I can to help me accept my disability.

Here are some alt accessibility tools I've found / made & utilized for myself!

I have yet to fix several of my posts that I did that for, thanks for the reminder!

Here I actually asked about that and got some really great responses! Definitely recommend everyone read this great feedback.

I was doing that because I saw other people doing that, but I'm super glad I tested a screen reader myself to check!

TLDR if you don't click on the linked post (which you really should tho!!)

Screen readers a majority of the time read formatted text typed in the website just fine, like bold, underlined, italics, and all caps. Colored text however doesn't do well! Especially like making every letter in a word a different color.

I was very encouraged reading these responses because with my own self accommodations I tend to stick to pretty plain text in my posts, and I never use colors lol

Reminder that fonts [ the copy paste ones/the ones on the post itself ], break screen readers regardless on if you put plain text above or below it. If anywhere on the post has a font the majority of screen readers will no matter what, crash, freeze, make horrible noises etc. The person using it will have to click off the post and/or blog. Some screen readers skip fonts but that doesn't mean all do. Many break and we are unable to do anything about it. Please, stop using them. For those who don't care enough to remove that, at minimum put "font warning" or something on the link / page so those who's screen readers break know to not click it. And while on that point. Put your easy to read link on a different page, or beside the link to the rentry/prn.cc/etc. If it's on the same as the font it could still break before we even have a chance to see there's an easy to read option.

Pretty fonts are not pretty when they exclude visually disabled people, pretty fonts are not pretty when they exclude people with dyslexia and other reading issues. Pretty fonts are not pretty if your response to people upset about them is "turn your screen reader off", "Just don't click it then" or "But I like how they look and it's my blog". That last one especially is ableist regardless on if you claim to care about disabled people. You are actively claiming you care about disability but ignore those with screen readers simply because it doesn't affect you. I'm tired of seeing fonts on every rentry and blog. I can't read boundaries or information without our screen reader yelling at us. How do you expect us to know anything about your blog if I can't get to the information?

One last thing. I'm disappointed when seeing someone also with a screen reader say "well it doesn't break mine so it can't break yours". Acknowledge you are lucky fonts don't break yours. Acknowledge it's still ableist to imply all screen readers work the same or that it isn't a big deal if some can't read what you can. It's upsetting being excluded from so many blogs. So many accounts in general because tumblr isn't the only website with fonts all over it. We don't deserve to have so many things not available just because we're not able to read them like others. - The Astropaws collective since we all agree on the issues.