The three videos I watched were the text-to-speech, colors with good contrast, and closed captioning on videos. Text-to-speech is important for those who are blind, have difficulty reading, or simply want to multitask. As someone who likes to multitask, I hadn’t realized that many websites offer this affordance–I will definitely be taking advantage of this feature.
Colors with good contrast was a feature I will be double checking on the Laetitia site. I’ve chosen dark red and white as the primary color palette, so the text SHOULD be readable, but I’ll have to check to see that other parts of the site consistently have high contrast.
Fun fact: I watched all the videos with closed captioning because I didn’t want to connect my airpods. So, yes, closed captioning is wonderful for all! As I create the documentary video of the research process, I’ll go back and add closed-captioning using some sort of AI (there are a few software/apps, any recommendations would be appreciated).
Overall, from these videos, I learned that accessibility is important in order to ensure a website conveys its information to all people. Without accessible affordances, we miss an entire demographic and potential audience. Moreover, these affordances are helpful for everyone, not just those for whom the affordance was developed.
- Identify 1 example of a technical feature, that is, something that can be implemented through the use of a design software, such as a web publishing editor that allows you to set alt text for an image.
A technical feature that can be used to increase accessibility could be, as previously mentioned, AI that automatically generates closed-captions. You can also use WeVideo to add your own captions. Additionally, when you upload images on WordPress, it automatically lets you add alt text.
- Identify 1 example of a more conceptual design feature that cannot be implemented through a software but instead has to be considered in the course of creating the content itself.
An example of this is the theme of a site and its color palette, which are important when creating the site itself. It’s important to consider the contrast of the colors.
- Identify 1 example of a feature you hadn’t considered before as a part of web accessibility.
Bypass blocks! I’ve always noticed them in the recipes bloggers post (I stay smashing that skip to recipe button ngl), but I hadn’t considered how they are an accessibility feature. It’s true that not everyone wants to scroll past how a baker came up with a recipe even though her daughter was discovering slime and ruined the kitchen, but I hadn’t considered that it is helpful in terms of accessibility for those who navigate sequentially to skip to the main content of a page. I guess that’s me.
Accessibility Checker Reflection:
Oops. So I forgot to add alt text to my home page’s navigation buttons, but the rest of the site was quite solid! This reminds me, I need to go back on the LMC website and add alt text.
Leave a Reply