How can stuff be more accessible for neurodivergent people? I think this gets pushed aside sometimes in favour of more visible accessibility needs
If you run a club or have recurring events, ‘we have a calendar for you to check’ can be a lot less accessible than ‘we run regular events, sign up for weekly reminders / reminders for upcoming events’.
Less need to remember to go check something, on a schedule, to keep up to date, which can be hard for folks with executive dysfunction- among others, those with ADHD. Issues reasoning about time can impact this, too.
It can seem like a style preference or a design choice, but it can be really helpful!
Do you have things you wish people knew could make the world more accessible to neurodivergent people?
Many deaf people don't have proper access to the news and other important digital media content. So we set out to create a #SignLanguage#avatar – only to find out we had made a lot of wrong assumptions.
Daniela Späth and Pauline Beck on an #AI / #3D / #accessibility tech project that failed (but in a good way):
Anecdotally - it feels like I know way more people sick with respirator viruses right now than I have in a long time. None of them are testing for COVID and none seem to think it’s strange they’re so knocked down in May.
One of them just got over a terrible cough & loss of appetite that lasted 3 months starting in December …. And is already severely ill again.
Does anyone have any positive stories of people who suddenly got fed up being sick all the time and finally masked up again? Or came to you and asked for more information on Covid precautions? I’ve been brushed off just for suggesting they test … and it’s feeling pretty bleak.
I genuinely believed that when previously healthy people started getting sick over and over (and for long durations) they would start to question the narrative that COVID is over/mild. They would get curious. They would ask questions. None of that is happening.
It makes me very scared that it’ll never happen. That no amount of sickness or statistics will get people to reconsider their stance on Covid, masks and mitigations.
So if anyone has hopeful stories - I would love to hear them!
NC are proposing a bill to ban masks (including medical masks) in public settings. This is not only discriminatory - it’s dangerous. It’s removing the LAST tool we have to protect against COVID.
It also sets dangerous precedent & fuels damaging narratives about COVID.
The proposed bill would see all masks banned in public settings. If a person requires a mask - they would need to have a medical exemption. Disabled people are exhausted. We’ve been forced into dangerous situations for 4 years thanks to “you do you” COVID policy.
To now expect us to do additional work to procure a medical exemption just to be able to wear a respirator to help us prevent death or further disability? It’s unnecessarily cruel. Doctor’s appts & notes cost money. They’re not accessible to everyone.
COVID mitigation is already a significant social justice issue. By virtue of the fact our governments and public health have done nothing to protect people - individuals are left to procure protection for themselves. This protection isn’t affordable for everyone.
Respirators, HEPA filters, rapid tests, far UV… all these tools are out of financial reach for many people. We have fantastic organizations attempting to get respirators into the hands of those who need them - but some people are always left behind.
Now we’re adding an additional barrier by putting the burden of proof that a mask is required on the disabled individual. We’re forcing them to risk exposure to go to a doctor, spend money out of pocket for a note and then carry it around in the hopes they don’t get arrested?
If governments and public health would take Covid more seriously -
People wouldn’t need to don respirators nearly as often. But when the powers that be take away access to vaccines & anti-virals, refuse to clean the air, provide testing or paid sick leave? We have no choice.
Even if everything goes perfectly (which rarely happens) and a person has access to a respirator, can afford to see a doctor & obtain medical exemption… there’s still a good chance they’ll be forced to remove their mask while law enforcement analyze the exemption’s legitimacy
COVID infects extremely quickly. Breaking the seal on your respirator - even briefly - can result in infection. We’re asking people to jump through an inordinate amount of hoops and spend ridiculous amounts of money only to quite possibly end up infected anyways.
There’s also a bigger issue that stems from the idea that the “medically vulnerable” can and should obtain an exemption. It continues to drive the narrative that Covid is ONLY a threat to people who are already vulnerable. Which we know is untrue.
COVID is a multi system disease that has a 10% chance of causing disability. The odds of Long Covid go up with each infection. It’s not 10% in those that are already vulnerable - it’s everyone. Many young & healthy people have had their lives ruined by this disease.
The lie that only the vulnerable need to be concerned is one of the most devastating of the pandemic. People are getting infected over & over & think they’ve “gotten away with it”….When there’s good odds that they’ve got silent damage & their next infection will disable them
It also propagates the notion that the vulnerable are expendable. That it’s ok if we die or become further disabled because the rest of the world needs to “go back to normal”. There’s nothing normal about a society that turns its back on others.
This desperation to return to the way the world was in 2019 is quite literally killing people. It’s ruining lives. It’s dividing people, straining healthcare systems and causing long term health consequences that will have ripple effects for decades to come.
This NC bill to ban masks is just the latest in a string of terrible decisions that are costing lives. And it didn’t have to be this way. Had we admitted Covid was airborne and worked to implement clean air standards - we wouldn’t be in such a dire situation now.
After several days of work, I finally pushed several commits to my website to accommodate those who rely on high contrast themes. Huge thanks to @acidiclight for helping me out by sharing a lot of feedback!
And a request to the broader community - feedback wanted and highly appreciated.
Please boost in the hopes of reaching someone who can answer:
Can someone direct me to a form and/or a person responsible for ensuring ADA compliance (not a defensive "cover your ass" thing, but actually caring about accessibility) at USDA?
I'm looking for benchmarks.
For @mucConf we want to provide accessibility information online.
Please send me links to events/conferences that did a good job communicating accessibility information!
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I have been testing low visibility accessibility on websites I visit, just to see what the experience is like.
Voice over is very easy to enable on a Mac with a magic keyboard. Clicking your touch id button quickly 3 times turns voice over on, and 3 times again turns it back off. Excellent shortcut that makes it easy to include in your development process.
With the popover API available in all browsers for a while now, we can easily build entirely accessible, even animated popovers for all use cases just with HTML and CSS. As an example I have created a codepen with a simple search button that opens a search field. #HTML#CSS#A11Y#accessibility https://codepen.io/philliproth/pen/OJYLyMp
I have a question for #accessibility and #internationalization peeps out there. Suppose that I made a post on Mastodon that includes a photo. But the language I use for the post is Tagalog, my native language. Should I write my alt text in Tagalog or English?
The post can be translated by whatever translation service Mastodon uses. But I'm not entirely sure that the alt text would also be translated, especially since I remember that #HTML attributes are not translated, unless that's old news.
I saw these unusual multicolor images posted on walls that look sort of like qr codes all over the Barcelona subway system, and learned that they are NaviLens codes that provide accessibility for folks with vision impairments.
They're getting a lot of uptake on public transport in the U.S., Europe and UK. They're also used on product packaging in grocery stores. The MTA in New York City is starting to roll them out.
If you notice them in your neighborhood, download the app and give it a try. It's amazingly cool.
I get that I don’t grok the work that goes into the UA rendering engine, but I am very worried about the #accessibility impact given it is not even addressed in the proposal.
How much thought do you give to public drinking fountains? @sean_hollister has been pondering them more than most. For @verge's "Button of the Month" feature, he wrote about their history and future, construction, how a bubbler turns into a dribbler, and what the Americans With Disabilities Act says about them.
I've been working on a subtitle editor plugin for #peertube !
It adds a extra button on the update video page, and can do most of what you find in other tools, like visualize audio, basic formatting, and makes it easy to switch language.
The goal is that it should be "good enough" for most who just want to add subtitles/captions, but don't want to spend time finding and downloading dedicated software for this.
Instance administrators can install it via the plugin page. #accessibility#a11y#foss
I asked ChatGPT and another AI to generate qbsh scripts and even gave it commands like CALC and PIP to incorporate. It clearly had bash in the crunchbang. When I suggested it wasn't qbsh, it apologized, removed that line and told me it was more using correct syntax and not "bash built-ins" and hallucinated qbsh commands that don't exist like GREP. It was pretty hilarious.
@vwbusguy Hmm, hadn't heard that. If all screen readers provide that function automatically, as opposed to on request, it would be an issue. But if not all have that capability, then it would be a problem to assume they do. Also, it wouldn't help people who don't use screen readers but who have images turned off, for example, to save bandwidth.