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Blind and Visually Impaired Community

Full History - 2020 - 05 - 06 - ID#geqpio
3
How do screen readers describe digital ads? (self.Blind)
submitted by ExcellentJellyfish1
I just made some digital ads for my company and all the ad text is embedded in the ad artwork, so not accessible to screen readers.

I have no idea how the implementation of the ads will be on this particular website, but I’m curious in general what the experience is like.
Laser_Lens_4 7 points 3y ago
Extremely poor. So bad that an ad blocker becomes basically necessary. Ads are usually put into a frame. Within it is usually a mishmash of JavaScript, blank spaces, broken buttons, images labeled with hashes, and other useless gobbeldygook. You are correct, screen readers cannot decipher any text from an image unless we use optical character recognition, but let's be honest, nobody is going to go through that trouble just to read some ad coughed up by a google server. Sorry, but those ads are getting blocked. I hope you don't take it too personally. I'm harsh about it because I've had to slog through so many of these things in the past. Most big companies consider accessibility a feature, so it's no surprise that some tiny ad company wouldn't even consider the possibility that someone without vision would come across their content.
ExcellentJellyfish1 [OP] 3 points 3y ago
I assumed at best the alt text would be something like “ad image 1”.

I don’t take it personally at all! I’m just out here trying to make sure all users can be properly annoyed by my digital ads.
bjayernaeiy 2 points 3y ago
Seconded. Am blind and use an ad blocker.
Prefect316 1 points 3y ago
As a blind copywriter it's incredibly frustrating that usually the text is embedded in the artwork as described here. I always had to OCR and hope for the best, or sit with a sighted friend who would be agape that I cared about the words in advertisements. Building a swipe file is much harder. Lol
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