#mogai accessibility

[idwl]

USE ALT TEXT RESPONSIBLY

[pt: use alt text responsibly /end pt]

A guide on what alt text is and how to use it! This guide is geared for those new to writing alt text, or for those who have been doing so for a while, but still need a little extra help. This is also geared towards describing flags, but can be used as a guide for describing most images

The mechanics

[pt: The mechanics /end pt]

What is alt text?

Alt text is an (optional, but highly encouraged) accessibility feature that allows you to describe your images for the blind and the visually impaired. This allows your blind and visually impaired viewers to better understand the contents of your post.

How does that work?

Some blind people use screenreaders (as well as other accessibility features) to navigate their phones, which will read alt text. Visually impaired people may also use screenreaders, depending on what their visual impairment is.

Why do we use alt text?

Because blind people and visually impaired people may not be able to fully see or look at the images. Screenreaders can't actually read the contents of images, so we have to describe them.

Where is alt text located?

Alt text is attached to an image. On tumblr, you may locate it by clicking the little "alt" square that appears on images with alt text. If you use a screenreader, it will automatically read alt text out by scanning the image. You can add alt text to an image by pressing the meatballs menu.

———

How to write alt text

[pt: how to write alt text /end pt]

If you're not sure what to describe in alt text, that's okay. I'm here to help you!

Generally, what you need to describe will be the subject of the photo, what it looks like, what the subject is doing, what it's wearing (if it is wearing clothing,) and briefly, what the surrounding environment is. You may also describe anything else if it offers context necessary to the post. Here's an example:

(source)

Here's a few more; this time, for flags!

(source; source; source; thank you to @rwuffles, @daybreakthing, and @the-astropaws for letting me use their flags and descriptions!)

Here's a post with some more advice; it really helps simplify how to describe images! I highly recommend looking at it (link.)

———

Dos and Don'ts

[pt: Dos and Don'ts /end pt]

DO:

Describe the contents of the image as accurately as possible.

Be exact and concise. There's no need for flowery language.

DON'T:

Purposefully describe the image in a way that is innacurate.¹

Make it unnecessarily long. You do not have to describe every minute detail; most times, simple is better.

Use color descriptors that are obscure.²

¹This includes writing a description for an image that's not there, using it for jokes, using it to credit the source of an image, using it as an "about me," etcetera. This purposefully misleads blind and visually impaired people.

If you're going to do this, at least write in the post "this image description isn't accurate." No, putting "this blog isn't screenreader friendly" in your bio means nothing, it has to be in the post (if you're publicly tagging it.) While it's preferable you don't do this at all, at least signal that you're doing so.

²This includes hex codes. Someone is less likely to know what "#c75f6d" or what "dusky rose" looks like. However, they will probably be able to visualize "a dull, reddish pink."

———

I'm still confused

[pt: I'm still confused /end pt]

Don't worry! People don't seem to realize this, but alt text is a skill like any other. And just like with other skills, practice goes a long way. If you're only just starting to write alt text, it's okay if you don't know where to start!

Here's a secret: everyone has a different way of witting alt text. People have different methods of writing, whether in books, texting, or even alt text. It's a good idea to study how other people write alt text and find a way that works best for you.

You can also practice describing random images! It might feel silly, but it can help you figure out how you want to word things and what to describe. You can also get a feel for how you want to write.

If all else fails, there are always image description blogs; like @/accessibilitea, for example. You can also ask a friend for help.

Oh, and here's a heads up: as long as you're describing an image as accurately and cohesively as possible, it's a good image description. Also, something is better than nothing.

Other tips:

try imaging you're describing the image to a friend

colorpick the image if you dont know what a color is

use image description templates for flags

———

I'd appreciate a reblog, but don't feel forced to give me one :]

———

; tagging . . @radiomogai; @noxwithoutstars; @daybreakthing; @flutteringwings-coining; @rwuffles; @scr-ppup; @smilepilled; @the-astropaws; @somniabyte; @icwdtea; @local-maneater

[accessibilitea]

🍵 blog promo 🍵

[PT: 🍵 blog promo 🍵 /End PT]

Welcome to accessibilitea!

This blog is a collaborative effort to provide image IDs and plain-texts (PTs) for the Tumblr LIOMOQAI community. We hope to split the demands of running an accessibility blog over multiple members, rather than having it all on one person.

You can get assistance from the blog through tagging (preferred), DMs or asks. We can do image ID assistance and accessibility advice as well as just ID-ing a post directly. Feel free to tag us as many times as you want!

Tags: (let us know if you want to be removed!)

@radiomogai @buntress @scr-ppup @boyrecluse @hrtluka @icwdtea @rwuffles @sevvys @angeltism @zoeynovie @the-astropaws @pupcoins @flutteringwings-coining @boingogender @acronym-chaos @catboy-autism @whimes @noxwithoutstars @dragonpride17 @robofox-mogai @theflaggerrrr @daybreakthing @brainkeeper-service @voidcoining @somniabyte

[rammgender]

ok. i'm genuinely so fucking sick and tired of being nice about this and not saying anything. evidently it seems the people who try to be nice about this are just ignored, and this is seriously a massive issue with our community.

this is a not super kindly worded message to every single coiner who uses heavy typing quirks, excessive amounts of spaces, colored text, ascii symbols, and what have you especially when there's no translations or the translations are hidden under a cut or at the end of a post.

have a fucking sliver of respect for visually impaired people. please. your coining posts are entirely inaccessible to those who need screenreaders, and half the time even i'm struggling to read them without needing one. i've seen at least 5 posts about this in the last few months and there has been zero change. in fact, i think even more blogs who use this format have popped up!

so fix it. your passive ableism is not fucking cutesy and fun in the slightest. no excuses, especially since typing in plain text is significantly faster.

and if this post makes you upset, you should really re-evaluate how inclusive you actually are.

[ceduralshinji]

some image description templates!

not need credit. use to heart's content!

plain flag: [id: a flag with (number) stripes. the colors, from top to bottom, are (insert colors). /end id]

gradiented flag: [id: a flag with (number) stripes. the colors, from top to bottom, form a gradient from (color) to (color). /end id]

w/ symbol: [id: a flag with (number) stripes. the colors, from top to bottom, are (insert colors). in the (position: middle, top right, etc) is a/n (color) (symbol). /end id]

gradiented w/ symbol: [id: a flag with (number) stripes. the colors, from top to bottom, form a gradient from (color) to (color). in the (position: middle, top right, etc) is a/n (color) (symbol). /end id]

wavy stripes: [id: a flag with (number) wavy stripes. the colors, from top to bottom, are (insert colors). /end id]

gradiented wavy stripes: [id: a flag with (number) wavy stripes. the colors, from top to bottom, form a gradient from (color) to (color). /end id]

[plaintextpro]

Promo post time!

—

Hi! I'm Spongebob! I'm from The Feverz. You may know our host, Emily; she runs @makeyoum1ne, @ut3ro, and other such blogs!

However, she's also a disability advocate, and I got super inspired by her; so I decided to make plain text pro!

—

What is plaintextpro?

Plaintextpro is a blog all about adding plain text to posts. I specifically work on adding it to mogai posts, but I may branch out!

What is plain text?

Plain text is text with no colors, symbols, typing quirks, fonts, capitalized text, etcetera!

Can I add your plain text to my post?

Always! I encourage it even!

Why would a post need plain text?

A lot of people; and I mean, a lot; have poor eyesight, deteriorating eyesight, or no eyesight! Some are also prone to eyestrain. Fancy text can break screenreaders, cause people to strain their eyes, or make a post unreadable.

—

So, you've read my post. Why not give me a boost?

tagging: @mogai-sunflowers @kiruliom @how-fag-can-i-be @ut3ro @revenant-coining and anyone else who'd like to boost this blog!

Feel free to send any questions or request plain text on a post through my ask box, as well.

[somniabyte]

post accessability

hey hi

ik im an *extremely* new blog but from my time in the community (just lurking in the shadows /silly) i’ve seen a lot about how the mogai community can be inaccessible for many

i would love to make sure that absolutely anyone and everyone can access my posts and not have to go through extreme hurdles to do so /gen

i dont use a screenreader, nor do i have close contact with anyone who does (that i know of). ive seen posts about colored texts and fonts that can “break” screenreaders. i may not fully understand how a screenreader works, or why it cant handle these things, but i do understand that in those situations its a simple step to make your post accessible.

i have an issue with my eyes and how they dilate which leads to bouts of extreme light sensitivity. even on my average days it can be extremely uncomfortable (and sometimes trigger a migraine) for me to see extremely bright colors (possible tmi?). i try to avoid the eyestrain tag when i dont think i can handle it. however there are still posts with brightly colored fonts (or images) that are untagged that impact my ability to access the post unless im on my bestest of days.

however, i dont fully understand anything past these two situations and want to make sure im not leaving anyone out when making sure every aspect of me and my blog are accessible.

please (gently) let me know things that i should be aware of/avoid doing (or even what i actively should be doing) as i enter the world of mogai blogging

tagging (bc ive seen accessibility posts through yall’s blogs mainly): @transflorall and @the-astropaws

[mogaidescribed]

could you help me with adding image IDs??? you're the fifth person that I'm asking that!!!

Hello! I am not good at explaining, but I'll try -- apologies if anything is unclear. I will also be putting this in tags, as I believe it is important information. However, I will also preface this by saying I do not use or need a screenreader and have no vision problems that affect how I see color (as long as I wear my glasses), so I likely do not fully understand what it is like to need a screenreader.

What I do is focus on how many stripes there are and if there are any variances in stripes, such as shape, stripe thickness, if they are wavy or not, etc. Let's use the trans flag as an example (adjusted so that the colors are not so bright. I am unsure if the colors would count as eyestrain, but looking at the colors hurt my eyes a little as I typed this up, so I muted them a bit):

[ID: A five horizontal striped flag. From top to bottom, the colors are light faded bluish-cyan, light pink, white, light pink, and light faded bluish-cyan. End ID]

I would first describe the amount of stripes, in this case: five. They are all of equal size, with no patterns, and are all just straight. So I would just say "A flag with five horizontal stripes" or "A five horizontal striped flag" -- taking into account the amount of stripes.

Secondly, I will describe the colors. I try to focus on what the color is, how saturated it is, if it's light or dark, or if it's a blend of any colors. I use the Artyclick color name finder site (I am not sure if tumblr allows links to outside sites to be in tags, so I'll play it safe and not link it here. However, it's the first result when you search up "Artyclick color name finder" or just "color name finder.")

[ID: A screenshot from the ArtyClick color name finder site. On the left, the color that is focused on is the light pink on the (edited) trans flag from before, whereas on the right, you can see the color name, Oyster Pink, alongside similar names: Dust Storm, Light Rose, Bubble Gum, and Pale Rose. The hue is shown to be pinkish-red, intensity said to be pale, and to the right of hue and intensity, it shows a matched vs your color. End ID]

This site shows what a color is named, similar names, its hue, and intensity. It's very good for when you're really stuck on how to describe a color. I recommend going for color names that are clear instead of obscure or abstract. For example... "light pink" is a better descriptor than "dust storm." Also, you do not have to go with exactly the same colors that ArtyClick generates. Some of the descriptions can be inaccurate at times, but it is a good tool to use if you're stuck on how to describe a color.

Another thing I do is looking at other flag IDs for reference if I need help with formatting or describing something. This is especially helpful if the flag is from a gender system, and even more so if the original coiner of the gender system has an image description for the flag template.

I hope this post helped! Everyone, please feel free to reblog, add on advice in comments or reblogs, or send in asks with your own advice.

[mourningmogaicrew]

“The mogai community has become really inaccessible lately because eveyone wants their posts to be formatted with dividers and symbols etc to be ~aesthetic~ and not enough people use IDs”

Damn. Couldn’t be me.

[ithriel-coins]

i want to apologize. my blog has a lot of untagged eyestrain currently, and in the past i've said that i'll tag it, but i did not keep that promise. i'm deeply sorry for this. accessibility is very important to me and i'm making a commitment to do better. that being said, here's what's going to happen to my blog:

the next few days i'm going to go through my posts and tag eyestrain that i missed before or forgot to tag. i'm also probably going to redo my pinned post and hopefully be posting more soon. maybe i will go through that eyestrain tag and add dulled flags when applicable. any tips for this would be greatly appreciated ! /nf

[misc-id-pt]

hi, i’m a scardey-cat who loves helping out with the accessibility side of tumblr! i love spending time adding plain text and image descriptions but get a bit nervous about opinions, so here’s my totally separate blog for adding ids and pt!!

i love spam like actually so much (please please please spam me)

in asks/dms/tagging, feel free to:

recommend blogs to add ids/pt to

send posts for ids/pt

ask me to go through posts before posted, adding ids/pt

literally anything else remotely related ^^

i may eventually add a byf sort of thing, but anyone can ask for id/pt on any posts! i think it’s important that everyone can access things, even if i don’t agree with them (which means posts i interact with aren’t signs of me agreeing with dnis/stances/byfs)

[describe-things]

Maned Lioness and Maneless Lion pride flags

Pride flags for anyone who identifies as, or with the concept of a maned lioness or a maneless lion, for any reason, including But Not Limited To: being intersex, gender nonconforming, trans in any way (and of any gender), or alterhuman/otherkin!

The colors were picked from photos of real lions and lionesses, and are completely symmetrical to represent how there's no "wrong way" to be a maned lioness or a maneless lion. There is no gender requirement for either flag.

Other people with completely different genders to you might identify as the same one as you, and this is a good thing. Have pride in your community. There is no wrong way to be a maneless lion or maned lioness. There is no gender requirement or policing.

Insert pride puns here.

These pride flags and icons are Public Domain, meaning there is no copyright on them, and you can do Literally Anything you want with them, at all. (Because there's no point in making a "pride flag" if no one is allowed to actually use it as a pride flag)

[ID: Three versions of two pride flags, both with seven horizontal and symetrical stripes, with the top, bottom, and center stripes being the same color. The first is the Maned Lioness pride flag, with stripes of: Black, tan, light brown, black, light brown, tan, and black. The first version of the flag has a white icon of a maned lionness in the center, with a spiky mane. The second version has just the stripes. The first version is the icon against a white background, with the flag stripes inside the lines of the icon itself. The second flag is the Maneless Lion pride flag, with stripes of: very soft gold, tan, light brown, soft gold, light brown, tan, and soft gold. The first version of the flag has the head of a maneless lion in the center in white. The second version has just the stripes, and the last version is the icon itself against a black background, with the stripes inside the icon. End ID.]

All of these images are archived on the Internet Archive. This post will be saved to the Wayback Machine as soon as it is posted. You are encouraged to download and share these anywhere and everywhere you want. Just please include the relevant sections of the image description for accessibility.

Again. Cannot stress this enough. There are no gender requirements for either of these terms.

You might identify with the same term here as a woman, or a man, or a nonbinary person. This is not a bad thing. This is fantastic. Celebrate your shared pride and have joy in your community.

Protect everyone around you just as strongly as lions defend members of their own prides, no matter the differences between you, whether you're a maned lioness or a maneless lion, or neither, or something in between.

Bare your collective teeth at those who want to harm us all.

[intervex]

What Pride Flags Mean, Part 1: Gender and Attraction

Welcome to the latest installment of my autistic hyperfixation on flags! I wanted to figure out a common language of Colour X means Thing Y. Like how pink is consistently used for feminine.

Having a common language for flag meanings matters because it improves cognitive accessibility of flags. ♿️💙

But I didn't want to be prescriptive about what colours should mean what. Just because I think Thing X should go with Colour Y doesn't mean everybody else would.

So this turned into a descriptive, empirical project. I gathered a data set of 2060 pride flag colour choices to figure out what are the most common colour-meaning combinations. Some of the results:

And here are the abstract modifiers: these are modifiers that were generally shared between the genders and the attractions. For example, black is used to indicate having no gender as well as having no attraction.

Click here for tables with okLCH values, hex values, definitions, and notes - I've put a more detailed write-up on my Wikimedia Commons userpage. (Mediawiki supports sortable tables and Tumblr does not.)

METHODS-AT-A-GLANCE

To make the figures above, I assembled a data set of pride flag colours. It contains 2060 colour choices from 624 pride flags, representing 1587 unique colours. Click here for a detailed description of how I gathered and tagged the pride flag colours and tagged them.

For each tag, I converted every colour to okLCH colour space and computed a median colour. OkLCH colour space is an alternative to RGB/hex and HSL/HSV. Unlike RGB/hex and HSL/HSV, okLCH is a perceptual colour space, meaning that it is actually based on human colour perception. 🌈

In okLCH space, a colour has three values:

- Lightness (0-100%): how light the colour is. 100% is pure white.

- Chroma (0-0.37+): how vibrant the colour is. 0 is monochromatic. 0.37 is currently the most vibrant things can get with current computer monitor technologies. But as computer monitor technologies improve to allow for even more vibrant colours, higher chroma values will be unlocked.

- Hue (0-360°): where on the colour wheel the colour goes - 0° is pink and 180° is teal, and colours are actually 180° opposite from their perceptual complements.

The important thing to know is that okLCH Hue is not the same Hue from HSV/HSL - the values are different! (HSL and HSV are a hot mess and do not align with human colour perception!)

You can learn more about okLCH through my little write up, which was heavily influenced by these helpful articles by Geoff Graham, Lea Verou, and Keith J Grant.

You can play with an okLCH colour picker and converter at oklch.com

🌈

MORE RESULTS: COLOUR DISTRIBUTIONS

Back when I started tagging my data, I divided my data into five main chunks: Gender qualities (e.g. masculine, androgynous), Attraction (e.g. platonic, sexual), Values (e.g. community, joy), Disability (e.g. Deaf, blind), and Other.

I'll talk about Disability and Values in future posts! But for an alternate view of the data, here are the full distributions of the colours that were placed in each tag.

They come in three parts: tags I created for Gender, tags for Attraction, and tags from Other. The abstract modifiers are spread between the first two, though their contents transcend Gender and Attraction.

Some distributions have a lot more variance within them than others. Generally speaking, major attraction types tended to have the least variance: sensual attraction is really consistently orange, platonic is really consistently yellow, etc.

Variance and size do not correlate. Many of the smaller tags are quite internally consistent. I don't have a ton of tags in "current gender" but they're all the same dark purple. Xenine/xenogender has a whole bunch of entries, and there's a really big spread from blue to yellow.

Some tags, like intersex as well as kink/fetish show there are a small number of different colours that are very consistently used. Whereas other tags like masculine show a very smooth range - in this case from cyan to purple.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied with how things wound up! 🥳 It makes sense to me that an umbrella term like xenogender would have a lot of variance. What honestly makes me happiest is just how many tags wound up 180 or 90 degrees from their opposites/complements. 🤩

Not everything lined up nicely (the opposite of drag is .... neuroqueer? awkward.) 🤨 Some things lined up in hilarious ways, like how initially I had the opposite of kink/fetish being Christian (amazing.)

But as a whole, there's a lot of structure and logic to where things landed! I hope this makes sense for other people and can help inform both flag making as well as flag interpreting (e.g. writing alt-text for existing flags). 🌈

I'm hoping to post the Disability and Values analyses in the coming days! If you want to learn more, my detailed notes along with tables etc are over on my Wikimedia Commons userspace. 💜

Everything here is Creative Commons Sharealike 4.0, which means you're free to reuse and build on my visualizations, tables, etc. Enjoy!

[voidcoining]

image ids! top to bottom, left to right

image 1: a transparent light lavender dovetail banner outlined with a thin stripe of dark lavender, then a thicker purple outline, then a thin dark blue outline. in lavender, from top to bottom, there are graphics of a star, a crescent moon in a circle, and another star

image 2: a transparent banner. on either end, there is a star followed by a line leading to the center with text that reads “Team Moon.” all of the image is in light lavender, outlined with purple, then dark blue

image 3: a lavender transparent userbox outlined in dark blue. there is a purple square to the left with an image of a light lavender crescent moon. to the right, light lavender text reads “This user is part of the Moon Team in the Coining Fight!”

image 4: a transparent yellow dovetail banner outlined with a thin stripe of light orange, then a thicker pinkish orange outline, then a thin reddish brown outline. in peach, from top to bottom, there are graphics of a clockwise spiral, a sun, and another clockwise spiral

image 5: a transparent banner. on either end, there is a sun followed by a line leading to the center with text that reads “Team Sun.” all of the image is in yellow, outlined with peach, then reddish brown

image 6: a peach transparent userbox outlined in reddish brown. there is a pinkish orange square to the left with an image of a yellow shining sun. to the right, light orange text reads “This user is part of the Sun Team in the Coining Fight!”

Hai! I made some cute little Coining Fight graphics! :3

[No ID right now, sorry!]

Moon on top, Sun on bottom!

(you'll also want to click to expand, as the way tumblr does image stuff is annoying, and also save these on computer for a similar reason)

@kiruliom !!!!

edit: oh yeah uh the banner are inspired by this[link]

Edit 2: there are also in this blog’s carrd in a new section i added, jsyk. Also i made the userboxes on here[link]. Might add blinkies, but I don’t have the spoons to do custom blinkies atm. Also I’m at school lmao

[rammgender]

happy disability pride month everyone!! going to be celebrating a lot considering that it's my first disability pride month since i got diagnosed with as and i finally have an explanation for the joint pain i've had since i was a kid. expect lots of reblogs here and me making some self-indulgent flags! if i can find the spoons to balance it with artfight (my user is 50blessingzz), also expect more activity over at @jackettranscribes :]

also coiners add plain text and image ids to your posts especially this month or i will hit you with my cane repeatedly in my mind. literally whatever excuse you have doesn't matter; it takes more effort to type in fancy text with quirks that can't be read than to write an image id. if you think you're too bad at it do your best. doesn't have to be fancy. something like "a pride flag with [number] stripes in [colors]" is better than nothing. hell, even "the [name] pride flag" is better than nothing. and do not hide them under a read more, it's insulting

[rabidbatboy]

“no id sorry” “no spoons for id” booo booo 👎👎👎 booooo (you can wait until you have spoons to make a short description of an image, nobody is holding you at gunpoint to post your mogai flag right now 🙂 or!! you could even ask someone for help!)

[plaintextpro]

(OLD PINNED, OUT OF DATE)

[pt: old pinned, out of date /end pt]

Heya! I'm Spongebob of The Feverz! I use he/she/sil/goof.

I'm an accessibility blog! More specifically, I add plain text to posts. My promo post will be linked at the bottom, where it explains what plain text is, and other important info!

Please add these plain texts to the original post! We add them for a reason. We'd appreciate it. Credit isn't required, either!

We also allow requests for plain text, your post or not. You can also tag us and we'll add it!

Promo Post here

(main blog is @makeyoum1ne)