#8: It was a good week

No really, I'm not joking

Mar 15, 2021

Time is a very strange thing. I fully expected last week to feel horrible, especially considering it was the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a pandemic.

But it actually didn’t feel too terrible. Somber, but not awful. My 30th birthday on Wednesday probably had a lot to do with it, but it was more than just that, which is why instead of one accessibility win and one accessibility fail this week, you’re getting three wins. It just felt right.

Here’s to hoping this coming week feels just as good for everyone.

Alexa

Digital Accessibility Wins of the Week

Win #1: IKEA’s Audio Catalog

IKEA has turned its famous catalog into an audio book and it’s a whopping four hours long. The retailer recently announced that it would no longer be printing the book, and has instead made it available online in addition to the audio format. You can listen to the full audio catalog on IKEA’s YouTube channel.

IKEA USA @IKEAUSA

Get your fresh IKEA inspo with the brand new IKEA Audio Catalog. It’s, spoiler alert, the IKEA catalog, now in audio form. Really. Hear it now on Spotify, Audiobooks.com and YouTube: bit.ly/3sYzGIk

Win #2: Twitter Audio Transcriptions

Audio transcriptions are coming to Twitter Fleets and voice tweets and hopefully soon! Twitter has made no secret about its desire to become a more accessible platform, so this is promising news as the platform continues to roll out new features.

Alessandro Paluzzi @alex193a

#Twitter is working on audio transcription of #Fleet videos and voice tweets to improve accessibility 👀

Win #3: Instagram Story Captions

Instagram is finally giving users the ability to caption their story videos directly in the app. My feature—which is still being tested internally—was accidentally leaked last week and discovered by industry leader Matt Navarra.

Alexa Heinrich (she/her) @HashtagHeyAlexa

Okay, here’s everything I know about @instagram’s new captions sticker for your story videos! Spoiler alert: not a lot. #Accessibility

Instagram Adds Captions Sticker to StoriesInstagram has finally started rolling out an in-app captions tool for videos you create for your story.alexaheinrich.medium.com

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!

You Should Retweet This

This was exceptionally disheartening to read. Thousands of Americans are dead due to government failure and we can’t even make vaccine roll-out websites accessible for blind and visually-impaired users? Absolutely disgraceful.

Yahoo News @YahooNews

Blind Americans face roadblocks booking online vaccine appointments yhoo.it/30Vm1Gl

Word of Advice

Make your memes accessible, please. This means adding alt text to your images and making sure your written content is formatted in a way that a screen reader user can access and understand it. I’ve seen a number of text-based memes that use excessive spacing and hard returns to make text appear as if it’s over a specific image. Don’t do this. A screen reader consumes copy left to right (for left to right languages), so it’s not going to recognize your multiple spaces as an improvised column gutter.

Check out my below thread on accessible memes to learn more and copy some pre-written alt text for a couple of memes that are trendy right now.

Alexa Heinrich (she/her) @HashtagHeyAlexa

There are a few photo memes running around right now, so I’m just here to remind you to add alt text to your images before you post them. #AddAltText

Looking for an easy way to double-check your social media content before posting it? Download my handy checklist and make sure you always have the basics of digital accessibility for social media covered!

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