#12: June 2021

Queen of Nothing

Jun 7, 2021

I recently had a conversation with a good friend of mine about allyship and knowing your place when it comes to advocacy. Despite how passionate I am about educating others about digital accessibility best practices for social media, I struggle every day over whether or not I’m going about doing this the right way.

Am I an expert? Absolutely. Am I the expert? Absolutely not, and it makes me incredibly uncomfortable when people act as if I am. There are so many brilliant individuals out there advocating for the same thing I am, many of whom are in fact disabled. Their voices and experiences will always be more important than mine. Being a good ally means putting the cause and the people impacted by it first. Always and without hesitation.

I’m not the Queen of Accessibility. Far from it, really. Like everyone else, there will always be more for me to learn.

Alexa

The Good Stuff from May

Captions Sticker Released for Instagram Stories

Instagram’s captions sticker for Stories moved from internal testing to an official rollout and will soon be available for Reels, too.

Instagram @instagram

Sound off 🗣 …with sound off 🔇 Now you can add a captions sticker in Stories (coming soon to Reels) that automatically turns what you say into text. We’re starting in a handful of countries and hope to expand soon.

YouTube Beefed Up Their Translation Experience

You can now browse video titles in your native tongue. Access comes in many forms, and language can play a part in that.

Android Police @AndroidPolice

YouTube's new translation experiment lets you browse titles in your native tongue androidpolice.com/2021/05/04/you…

Add Your Pronouns to Your Instagram

While pronouns don’t necessarily make your profile more accessible, they do make it more inclusive, which is equally important.

Instagram @instagram

Add pronouns to your profile ✨ The new field is available in a few countries, with plans for more.

Apple Watch Gets an Upgrade

Apple has made it easier to check the notifications on your watch by simply using hand gestures.

Sarah @sarahyuui

my team at Apple Accessibility is incredible! on Apple Watch, you can now answer calls, check your notifications or end a workout using ONLY hand gestures ⌚️✊🏼👌🏼 + much more here: apple.com/newsroom/2021/…

Twitter Spaces Keeps Getting Better

Not only is Twitter Spaces now available on desktop, but the team who continue to develop the feature have consistently made it clear that accessibility is a priority for them, and transcriptions are in the works!

Spaces @TwitterSpaces

starting today, spaces will be available on Twitter.com (mobile web, desktop web) our focus areas: - infrastructure and listening UI that adapts to your screen size - setting reminders for scheduled spaces - accessibility and transcriptions

YouTube Uses ASCII Art Cheat

It’s nice to see a major platform that understands how to make ASCII art accessible. If you’re not aware of the workaround, you screenshot the illustration, add it to your tweet or post as an image, and then write alt text for it. Boom, accessible ASCII art.

Liam O'Dell @LiamODellUK

This is good to see from YouTube. Rather than populate the tweet itself with inaccessible text/emoji art, they’ve instead popped this into an image and added alt text. More of this, please. 👏🏻

YouTube @YouTube

What’s the last channel you subscribed to? https://t.co/JjLlbG0tT4

Creators Captioning Their Videos More Frequently

Speaking of YouTube, since they pulled their Community Captions feature last year, more creators have apparently started making the effort to caption their own videos to make them accessible for deaf and hard of hearing users, which is how it should be.

@NealBilow @nealbilow

“I used to send out personal emails to many YouTubers a year asking them to caption their content." Accessibility must be the standard when creating any content. Fascinating read on the state of YouTube captions and how activists are pushing for change.

YouTube pulled its community captions feature, so now more creators are making their ownDeaf campaigners pushed for more captions on YouTube, and it’s working. After community captions were removed in 2020, overall captions are up in 2021. Deaf campaigners pushed for more captions on YouTube, and it’s working. Aftertheverge.com

The Bad Stuff from May

Donut Overload

I get that it’s Dunkin Donuts, but someone should let them know that there is in fact a thing as too many donuts. This tweet they created for National Donuts Day is cute, but it’s a small nightmare for a screen reader user.

Helene Holstein @HelHathNoFury

Yes, images made out of emojis can look cool and cute. But here's how a screen reader reads them. Thank you @HashtagHeyAlexa for raising awareness about #AccessibleSocial!

Company Claiming to Make Websites ADA Compliant Slammed

If you’re not familiar with AccessiBe and companies similar to it, they use overlays in an effort to make websites accessible. However, they cause more problems than solutions. Your website should be made accessible from the beginning; it shouldn’t be an afterthought that you try to fix with a band-aid like an overlay.

Meryl Evans speaks at #A11yNYC on July 13 @merylkevans

Blind people, advocates slam company claiming to make websites ADA compliant buff.ly/3o1Tx8x Excellent article that tells the whole story about overlays by @aprilaser via @NBCNews Quotes the brilliant @ChanceyFleet @HabenGirma @accessaces #Accessibility #A11y

Chancey Fleet stands on a trail surrounded by trees and her loyal black dog stands next to her

Appliances Don’t Have Braille Keypads

Now, this tweet isn’t actually bad. What Kristin does to make the world more accessible for her sons is wonderful, but the fact that she has to do it because the manufacturers don’t is disappointing. After reading her tweet, I immediately went and checked the appliances in my house because they’re only a few years old, and sure enough, their keypads don’t have Braille either.

Kristin Smedley😎 @KristinSmedley

Brailled the oven & microwave so my boys can independently navigate the kitchen in our new home. Now if only there was a cool way to make the “Mom we have nothing to eat” go away! #ThrivingBlind #access #MomLife

Green tactile stickers on touch pad of oven

Have you recently spotted a major digital accessibility win or fail on social media? Send it to me! I might just feature it in my next newsletter. Feel free to email me at hello@therealalexa.com or you can DM me on Twitter. My inbox is always open!