Social Media

I started learning about zine accessibility when one of my favorite cooking blogs released a zine filled with several different recipes that I was excited to try, which had been made available both as a print and a digital copy that I downloaded from their…

I started following the Met Gala and a few other fashion events a few years ago when vibrant colors started to make a comeback on red carpet outfits. I love getting to see all of the bold fabrics, patterns, and unique silhouettes from different designers…

I was quoted in the Wall Street Journal talking about how I would improve existing alt text features on Twitter and other social media. While the actual quote is only a sentence long, I have many other thoughts on improving alt text features on social…

Free options for blind/low vision users that can help with accessing online images that do not contain alt text or image descriptions that can be read by a screen reader

Even though I have lived with a chronic pain condition for many years, it wasn’t until recently that I fully realized how my condition influences how I interact with websites, applications, and other digital content, and how there aren’t many resources available that talk about…

Almost five years ago, I was sitting in my dorm room at George Mason University, bored out of my mind and trying to figure out what to do for the weekend. My homework for my assistive technology class was finished at this point, and I…

I’ve had a lot of conversations with people on social media about alt text, including common myths about alt text and how to write alt text. Alt text isn’t really talked about a lot, and many people have misconceptions about what it does or how…

Today (4 January 2021) is World Braille Day, a day that commemorates Louis Braille’s birthday and that celebrates the tactile system for reading and writing that he created that is used by people who are blind or visually impaired from all around the world. While…

This weekend, I had the opportunity to give a flash talk about writing media descriptions for current events as part of the Protest Access-a-Thon, an event hosted by a group called Protest Access that focuses on making content related to protests and current events accessible…

Recently, I was browsing Pinterest looking at different outfit possibilities for a casual dress that I’d just purchased online, and I started thinking about how to write alt text for casual outfits that I often see online. These images are frequently shared on social media…

I love to cook and try new foods, and frequently find myself writing short alt text and image descriptions for food so that I can tell my friends all about the new recipe I tried or the fun restaurant we got takeout from. Recently, I…

Over the last several days, there has been an increase in the number of amateur photojournalism images that have been posted online and on social media to document current events. For many people with visual impairments, these images are inaccessible or hard to see due…

In the last few days, there has been a surge in the number of primary source videos that are being shared on social media and by news outlets. Many of these videos only have a few words spoken, yet tell a powerful story about what…

Everyone has different views on what language or words are appropriate to use at given times. Instead of changing or removing words, many writers choose to censor words using additional or alternative characters or symbols. A lot of these attempts at censorship are done without…

A picture says a thousand words, and there are times that images on social media require more than a thousand characters to create an adequate description for people that are blind or that have low vision. While I recommend keeping image descriptions as short as…