#accessibility

[mxmwitch-blog]

On the one hand, I am a long-time lover of weird secondhand bookstores and their oddball owners, and this is some peak aesthetic right there.

On the other hand, I am now middle-aged with loved ones with various disability-related needs and this looks so fucking hostile. Like. A fat person couldn't make it safely down down this aisle, nevermind someone with a walker or a wheelchair.

[talkethtothehandeth]

What is happening with section 504? And what you can do about it? Section 504 is under attack. If you live in any of these states, you can call your representatives.

DISABILITY INJUSTICE AFFECTS EVERYONE. You shouldn’t care “just because” you could be disabled one day. You should care *now*, because this will come back to everyone.

Images from @/myelasticheart on Instagram

[concerningwolves]

Holy **** oh right okay. So I was about to make a post about how using speech to text has already been a game changer for me but as you can see by the line of asterix at the start of this post the bloody thing auto censors swear words. (Yet bloody got through, ig Because it is a description and also British slang.). Hint: the word I was trying to say there starts with F and ends with K.

Oh and guess what else you can't say you can't say? **** [Nipples]. had to type that myself. penis is ok but **** [clitoris] isn't, and all my attempts to say "clit" were Misunderstood, which may just be my speech but at this point I am not willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Vagina is OK too but every time I say it there is a moment when an * shows up on screen first before the full word does. this doesn't happen when I say the word penis.

It is completely heinous. Anybody who needs speech to text is immediately forced to comply with the rules set out by people in a position of power and then enforced by a machine ��� a machine that is a very powerful accessibility tool. Imagine trying to dictate a letter to a doctor or fill in an E consult with speech to text, only to have words of your anatomy censored as if they are taboo. there is already far too much stigma around genital physical health — and note that I could say genital but can't say **** [clitoris] — for it to be okay for these words to be censored.

And even if somebody just wants to swear In a message to their friends or write smut/**** [pornography], they should be able to. There is no justification for this feature. No reason for it to be default.

I'm trying to find a way around this. There is a settings icon on the little speech to text bar that comes up, but this only gives me options For the speech typing launcher, auto punctuation, and to set the default microphone. it's making me extremely angry

[disasterhimbo]

[ID: a simply-drawn comic in which a person tosses a ball labeled “new art” into a hole in the floor, and then watches as hearts float up. They grab a tag that says “nice!” in all caps from the middle of the hearts floating up from the hole, and blush happily, with some hearts around their face. End ID.]

I often save things to drafts with the intention of reblogging them later, when I have energy to add tags and image descriptions.

It would be a lot easier if people would add image descriptions when they make their posts, but they don’t, so it falls on mostly disabled people to try to make posts accessible. Please help us out by describing images, audio, and video when you make a post at the very least, even better if you have energy to add descriptions to other people’s posts.

No one owes artists anything.

But existence is lonely and sometime you throw hours and hours of effort into a void, on the slim chance it will say something back.

[lupusbaby]

Some people don’t want to hear this but sometimes accessibility is not sustainable or eco-friendly. Disabled people sometimes need straws, or pre-made meals in plastic containers, or single-use items. Just because you can work with your foods in their least processed and packaged form doesn’t mean everyone else can.

[everythingwasnormalhere]

Ok so, I just remembered how people in the comments of a tiktok video were being assholes, and I want to rant now :3

The video showed two wheelchair users at a train(?), who had just arrived to their stop to find nobody was there with a ramp so they could leave the train. One of them blocked the door so it wouldn't close, and this lasted for 15 minutes. The train was stopped for said 15 minutes. There was a button by the door, that said that it'd contact the driver when pressed. It didn't. People offered to go find the driver, and they came back with the news that there were no people in the platform to put the ramp. In the end, passengers had to go out, and place the ramp themselves, before the train could carry on. The wheelchair users had warned they were coming, and asked to have the ramp put there so they could get down. The platform turned out to have workers, they all just ran away because they'd never encountered the situation in which they needed to do this simple task.

Because of the workers' negligence, the train was forced to stop for 15 minutes.

Everyone's comments?

"Why did they block the doors and stop the train? So selfish" Selfish were workers who refused to do their job.

"What if someone had needed to get to their stop urgently? They shouldn't have stopped the train" It wasn't the disabled people's fault, it was the workers who were negligent.

"Why didn't they just wheel themselves down those steps?" They shouldn't have to risk their (expensive) chairs just because people didn't do what they were paid to do.

"If I had been in that train I would've been pissed, how dare you stop it" And you probably wouldn't have even thought about fixing the problem yourself, would you?

"Entitled assholes" Ok I'll leave you stranded in a train with everyone who could help you get down outright refusing to. Let's see who's an entitled asshole now.

If someone fights for accessibility, as much as it might be a bother for you, you do not have the right to be mad at them. If someone fights for accessibility, it is exclusively the fault of a world catered exclusively for able-bodied people.

So next time you think, "hey the consequences of these disabled people fighting for their rights bother me", instead of blaming them for this, help them solve the issue. This way, next time they will not have to fight at all.

Able bodied people, go out and fight for a fucking accessible world if you're not an asshole.

[ Able-bodied people are encouraged to reblog this post, but try not to derail ]

[pleaseletmeexist]

When I say “school should be disability accessible”, I don’t just mean we need handicap rails and EAs. Kids should be able to miss a day without failing out of school. You shouldn’t be dismissed from clubs because your attendance record is “spotty” (true story). I once missed an entire week of school because of a terrible, unending migraine. I was expected to keep up with my studies despite the blinding pain that came with working on my computer. When I heard my teachers say that you couldn’t miss exams, I asked what I would have to do to be excused from them. Their response? “Either get a doctor’s note an hour before the exam or death of an immediate family member.”

I cannot express how rigid this expectation was. First of all, with my condition, I wouldn’t have enough warning about my sickness to go to the doctor and request a note. For many people, this is exceptionally difficult, especially with the current shortage of medical professionals. Next, it ignores the fact that my schedule may not line with theirs because of my medical needs. Once, I had to visit a hospital a province away (which I was on the waiting list of for over a year) on the same day as an exam. I begged my mother not to take me because I was so nervous that I would be marked as an automatic fail. I was lucky enough to make it work, but that’s only because of my spectacular support system consisting of family members and wonderful doctors.

Disabilities aren’t always about needing a bus that can accommodate wheelchairs. It’s already difficult enough for many of us to maintain school attendance without the harsh punishments involved for skipping a day. We need to be able to miss school without being punished. Only than can you claim that the school is “accessible”

[softness-and-shattering]

Theres a sewing/crafting channel I watch sometimes run by Charlie Nebe I think, Im blanking on her main channels name, its like The Sewist or the - The Stitchery, I think? Definitely one woman in her livinig room.

She subtitles everything she says, all the like silly frustrated noises she makes, when her dogs pawsteps are audible, and then she also describes the music interludes when shes not talking. She has a logo and like theme jingle at the beginning if every video, and the description always has a random fact of some kind in it. Then sometimes the music interludes tell a story, there was a delightful one recently that started like "light airy music like Sara the mouse is out for a gentle stroll" and then "cosmopolitan music as Sara enters a cafe and selects some baked goods" and by the end of the video we had italian-vibe music as Sara had taken a nice young mouse out for a date to an Italian restaurant. It could just be "music" or even "playful music", instead Charlie evokes a whole mood and setting, as music is evocative, and sets a scene in a, imo, a similar kind of way to ones music choices. Its a lot more specific ofc, and idk I could see people disliking the extraneous information, but I find it delightful. Yes tell me what this music evokes for you and why you chose it, thats way more effective than writing "happy music", to me.

whenever i click the cc button on a youtube video that clearly has a high budget and is made by a fucking studio and i see “english - auto generated” i spit daggers from my eyes and mouth at whoever decided to not pay someone to make actual captions

[sidras-tak]

Accessibility takes too goddamn fucking long.

My brother was paralyzed in October 2023. We got him home from the hospital (in Texas, when we live in Iowa) in a clunky old hospital chair. He hated it. He was scared and angry and in pain and his life had just changed forever and he couldn’t do anything for himself in that wheelchair. His first goal (aside from learning how to transfer) was to get a wheelchair. My family was lucky enough to afford one so we thought it would be easy enough. Nope.

We couldn’t buy him a wheelchair. He needed a prescription. For a wheelchair. A doctor had to examine him and declare him in need of a wheelchair. It wasn’t good enough that he had scans and tests showing tumors cutting off his spinal cord. He needed his primary care doctor to examine him during a physical and write a prescription. He was making 2-4 transfers a day, tops. He had no energy to get to a doctor. Home health was in and out every day. He had no time to get to a doctor. He didn’t get a prescription for almost a month. Then it had to go through insurance.

We asked if we could skip insurance and just buy a wheelchair for him. Nope. They wouldn’t sell us one, not even at full sticker price. It needed to be approved by Medicare. We ordered a wheelchair, a nice one, a good shade of green, sporty, small. It would let him move around the house. He would be able to cook, to reach drawers and get stuff from the fridge and brush his teeth and put his contacts in at a sink. We were told it would take awhile, maybe two months. Silently we all hoped he would be around to see two more months.

He went on hospice care on a Saturday in March. On Monday, I was calling his friends to come see him before he died. I got a call on his phone. It was the wheelchair company. They were about to order his wheelchair, she said, but there was an issue with insurance— had he stopped being covered by Medicare? Well, yes. When he started hospice care, he got kicked off Medicare. The very nice woman I talked to told me to call her if he resumed Medicare coverage so she could order his wheelchair. He died less than 12 hours later.

We ordered that chair for him in early December. Medicare didn’t approve the order until March. He was dead before they got around to it. He wanted that fucking wheelchair so badly. The only reason he had any semblance of independence and any quality of life for the last five months of his life was because the wheelchair company lent him an old beater chair, a very used model of the chair he ordered. If I could go back and change one thing about his end-of-life, I would get him his dream wheelchair. He told me again and again he couldn’t wait to get it, so that he could feel like a person again. He made the best of what he had with that old beater chair, but it still makes me mad to this day. He was paralyzed. He needed a chair that afforded him dignity. We had the money for it. And yet, we were left waiting for five months, for a chair that wouldn’t even get ordered until the day he died.

[accessibleaesthetics]

Very Silly Concept: a show called "Accessibility Nightmares" but it's structured exactly like Kitchen Nightmares. An accessibility specialist goes to different establishments and helps them make their businesses more accessible.

The accessibility specialist asks why the door at the top of the small set of stairs has a wheelchair symbol on it. The owner replies that's the accessible bathroom. The camera zooms in on the specialist as they process this information.

A customer with a service dog comes in to a restaurant. The hostess tells them they don't allow dogs. The accessibly specialist looks over at the hostess like

And there are web accessibility episodes too. The accessibility specialist stares at the white text on the light pink background of the home page like

The specialist asks why not a single product picture has alt text, and the business owner says "Well I mean, it's makeup, why would a blind person be shopping for makeup?" The specialist just

The specialist asks the web designer how a screen reader user is supposed to complete the captcha portion of the password reset process when there is no audio alternative. The designer admits they don't know.

[smoov-criminal]

the US Department of Transportation is now accepting comments on new rules for US airlines regarding disabled passengers!

"The proposed rule would require that airlines meet rigorous standards for accommodating passengers with disabilities safely and with dignity. The proposal will set new standards for prompt, safe, and dignified assistance, mandate enhanced training for airline employees and contractors who physically assist passengers with disabilities and handle passengers’ wheelchairs and specify actions that airlines must take to protect passengers when a wheelchair is damaged during transport. Notably, the proposed rule also would make it easier for DOT to hold airlines accountable when they damage or delay the return of a wheelchair by making it an automatic violation of the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) to mishandle wheelchairs."

you can read the complete proposal here, and leave a comment here! the comments will be open for 25 days as of today, May 18th. if you're American, even if you aren't disabled, please leave a comment, and if not please share this around!

[shadow27]

Doctor Who is celebrating 60 years by releasing over 800 episodes on BBC iPlayer.

The sci-fi fantasy show first premiered in 1963 and has cemented itself as a permanent fixture in pop culture history. This fall, fans will be able to stream the entire 800-plus episode series along with spin-offs like Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood, and Class, and the behind-the-scenes series Doctor Who Confidential.

Each Dr Who episode will be made accessible for all Whovians, with subtitles, audio description, and sign language options available for the very first time.

[mightyoctopus]

Blind Tumblr users: don’t get the latest iOS app update!

I just updated my tablet to the newest version of the tumblr app for iOS and it completely broke screen reader access for both VoiceOver and Spoken Content. This has happened in the past already, so I will file a support ticket and copy-paste my text from last time, but this really sucks. I sincerely hope this doesn’t affect all screen reader users, but I’m unsure how they could program this bug in a way it only affects me. If you rely on a screen reader to use the tumblr app, I’d advice to not get the latest update to be on the safe side.

When I say “completely broke access”, what I mean is that no posts on my dash or on individual blogs get read or recognized at all. No plain text, alt text, tags, etc. Note count and buttons still work though.

If you also run into this bug, here’s my advice. If anyone has something more useful, please tell me

File a support ticket and report this bug

Use the browser web version, which still works for me

Interestingly, if you save a post to your drafts and click on “edit” the post text seems to get read correctly. This might be a work-around for some people.

If you have the latest version but your screen reader didn’t break, also please tell me! I would be fascinated to know if this bug is only affecting some people

TL;DR: The latest tumblr app update for iOS made it so screen readers no longer work in the app

Please boost!

Edit: This issue is now fixed as of November 10th 2023. However, since this is a recurring issue, it’s possible that a future update will break it again. See notes for more details.

[hunter-rodrigez]

Accessibility tip:

If you want to automate your home a bit, but you don't want any "smart" tech, you can just buy remote controlled power sockets instead

They are a lot cheaper and easier to set up and use than some home automation smart tech nonsense

They don't need an app (but some models come with optional apps and there are apps that are compatible with most of these)

Many of them use the 433mhz frequency to communicate, which makes most models compatible with each other, even if they are from different manufacturers

The tech has been around for a long time and will be around for a long time to come

You don't have to put any fucking corporate listening devices like an amazon echo in your home

Models for outdoors exist as well