Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Accessibility questions (self.Blind)
submitted by LovelyLovelyArtist
Hey yall! Had some questions I was hoping to get input on.
First off, where might I find a good guide for writing image descriptions? I run an etsy store for dice towers and other tabletop game accessories, and I try to include alt-text in my social media posts and store pages. However I am sighted and I worry that what I think is a good description might not be as useful to someone that actually needs to use it. If not a good guide for image descriptions, or what you think makes good image descriptions, is there a place, website, or service where I could beta test it?
Secondly, I'm curious about how one would go about making multiple copies of braille documents. As I mentioned, I run an etsy store, and something I've been trying to do more is include things to make tabletop games more accessible. This includes ideas for a braille spell slot tracker, braille polyhedral dice, spell cards, and character sheets. (I'll say flat out, the character sheets I intend to make freely available. There's no reason that a sighted person can just have a physical character sheet easily and a blind person has to pay a premium. That's complete and utter hogwash.) My question in this being how would one go about mass-printing documents of this nature? My only experience is with braille typewriters, and I fear that would be a herculean task to try and type out each spell page by hand, nevertheless make it available. Is there a braille printer that would be affordable to the common consumer? Or if not, is there a way that one could arrange some sort of braille printing press?
Thank you!
First off, where might I find a good guide for writing image descriptions? I run an etsy store for dice towers and other tabletop game accessories, and I try to include alt-text in my social media posts and store pages. However I am sighted and I worry that what I think is a good description might not be as useful to someone that actually needs to use it. If not a good guide for image descriptions, or what you think makes good image descriptions, is there a place, website, or service where I could beta test it?
Secondly, I'm curious about how one would go about making multiple copies of braille documents. As I mentioned, I run an etsy store, and something I've been trying to do more is include things to make tabletop games more accessible. This includes ideas for a braille spell slot tracker, braille polyhedral dice, spell cards, and character sheets. (I'll say flat out, the character sheets I intend to make freely available. There's no reason that a sighted person can just have a physical character sheet easily and a blind person has to pay a premium. That's complete and utter hogwash.) My question in this being how would one go about mass-printing documents of this nature? My only experience is with braille typewriters, and I fear that would be a herculean task to try and type out each spell page by hand, nevertheless make it available. Is there a braille printer that would be affordable to the common consumer? Or if not, is there a way that one could arrange some sort of braille printing press?
Thank you!
CloudyBeep 5 points 1y ago
I'm going to echo a lot of what u/zersiax has said.
Image descriptions: This guide is quite good: https://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/
Braille printing: The most commonly used braille typewriter retails for about $1000. The cheapest braille embossers cost a few thousand dollars. Braille is produced on paper thicker than standard printer paper to increase its durability, which means that it is also a little more expensive. This is to say, I suggest that you don't do this yourself. I have some ideas, but I want to know where you're based so I can offer the most useful advice.
Image descriptions: This guide is quite good: https://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/
Braille printing: The most commonly used braille typewriter retails for about $1000. The cheapest braille embossers cost a few thousand dollars. Braille is produced on paper thicker than standard printer paper to increase its durability, which means that it is also a little more expensive. This is to say, I suggest that you don't do this yourself. I have some ideas, but I want to know where you're based so I can offer the most useful advice.
LovelyLovelyArtist [OP] 3 points 1y ago
Thank you! This'll be a lot of help.
Ahh darn! That does make things difficult to say the least. And I'm based out of the US, specifically the Pacific Northwest if that helps.
Ahh darn! That does make things difficult to say the least. And I'm based out of the US, specifically the Pacific Northwest if that helps.
CloudyBeep 2 points 1y ago
I recommend contacting the American Printing House for the Blind and National Braille Press to see if they can satisfy your braille production requests.
LovelyLovelyArtist [OP] 2 points 1y ago
Awesome, I'll have to look into that. Thank you for your suggestions! :)
zersiax 4 points 1y ago
Hmm ...Not the easiest questions to definitively answer, OP, but let me take a crack at it.
First, the braille press ...frankly, I have no idea. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, braille printers are quite expensive, so that would probably not be a good return on investment strategy as it were. As for having some institution braille your content for you, that might work, and I'll let others chip in with organizations that do that kind of thing as I think they are mostly local, and I'm in the Netherlands :)
Another option might be to craft a digital version of the things that can be made digital; character sheets etc., that way there's at least an option while you figure this out. I get that this wouldn't be an option for braille cards and such though. The guys over at 7-128 games make accessibility kits for various card games, perhaps they have some insights?
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As for alt text, it really depends on the image and what you want to do with it. If the image is functional, make sure the sailliant bits are easy to view, e.g. a playing card in an online card game might just have the card's suit and value, it's not as relevant what the visual characteristics of the card are, that'd just be extra verbiage.
If the image is decorative, things get trickier, because at that point it becomes a matter of creativity rather than pragmatism. Say you want to describe a product box art, you'll probably want to word smith a good description of the visual characteristics to convey the effort that was put into said art. A game piece, or some other actual implement, could be described using shapes and sizes first, colors and visual characteristics second, but this is where opinions will start differing. I'd say the best way to beta test your image descriptions is to ...well ...actually beta test your image descriptions :) have a bunch of screen reader users look at your stuff and ask them a couple questions, gather feedback as it were :)
First, the braille press ...frankly, I have no idea. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, braille printers are quite expensive, so that would probably not be a good return on investment strategy as it were. As for having some institution braille your content for you, that might work, and I'll let others chip in with organizations that do that kind of thing as I think they are mostly local, and I'm in the Netherlands :)
Another option might be to craft a digital version of the things that can be made digital; character sheets etc., that way there's at least an option while you figure this out. I get that this wouldn't be an option for braille cards and such though. The guys over at 7-128 games make accessibility kits for various card games, perhaps they have some insights?
​
As for alt text, it really depends on the image and what you want to do with it. If the image is functional, make sure the sailliant bits are easy to view, e.g. a playing card in an online card game might just have the card's suit and value, it's not as relevant what the visual characteristics of the card are, that'd just be extra verbiage.
If the image is decorative, things get trickier, because at that point it becomes a matter of creativity rather than pragmatism. Say you want to describe a product box art, you'll probably want to word smith a good description of the visual characteristics to convey the effort that was put into said art. A game piece, or some other actual implement, could be described using shapes and sizes first, colors and visual characteristics second, but this is where opinions will start differing. I'd say the best way to beta test your image descriptions is to ...well ...actually beta test your image descriptions :) have a bunch of screen reader users look at your stuff and ask them a couple questions, gather feedback as it were :)
LovelyLovelyArtist [OP] 3 points 1y ago
Drat. I was hoping there was an option that I could do more or less in house, but it sounds like it's not an especially viable solution. That's a shame, I was hoping to be able to offer the character sheets as a hand out at conventions or something. Or to sell physical spell books, as I know I love the feeling of a physical book or spell card as opposed to my digital versions. It's a shame the embossing technology isn't as widely available :(
The idea for organizing electronic versions of the documents would work, I think. Character sheets for D&D are a logistic mess but could be streamlined easily enough. (Spell cards are.... well they are a beast even if you can see them, but there is absolutely a way to optimize them for someone using a screen reader).
I will absolutely have to check out 7-128 games though, and see if they have insight. :)
Hmm, I see. So for a store listing for selling a product, would you say that counts more as functional? I've been depicting them as more decorative than not.
Thank you for all your input! It's incredibly helpful! :)
The idea for organizing electronic versions of the documents would work, I think. Character sheets for D&D are a logistic mess but could be streamlined easily enough. (Spell cards are.... well they are a beast even if you can see them, but there is absolutely a way to optimize them for someone using a screen reader).
I will absolutely have to check out 7-128 games though, and see if they have insight. :)
Hmm, I see. So for a store listing for selling a product, would you say that counts more as functional? I've been depicting them as more decorative than not.
Thank you for all your input! It's incredibly helpful! :)
MostlyBlindGamer 3 points 1y ago
If I'm going to buy your product and touch it rather than see it, I want to know what it feels like first. I also care if other people will enjoy looking at it, of course.
yoyo2718 3 points 1y ago
If you’re going to do digital copies of character sheets, I’d suggest having some screen reader users beta test to make sure they are as readable as you think.
LovelyLovelyArtist [OP] 3 points 1y ago
A good suggestion, want to make sure it's actually usable for the intended audience. Is there any faux paus I should be especially conscious of?
MostlyBlindGamer 3 points 1y ago
Web and document accessibility - specifically PDF accessibility, which is what you're most likely looking for - is a can of worms you can hardly imagine.
Having people test your work is great, but not just any party of adventurers can guide you though the process. There are accessibility consultants for that, but they're going to need a few good pieces too.
Having people test your work is great, but not just any party of adventurers can guide you though the process. There are accessibility consultants for that, but they're going to need a few good pieces too.
yoyo2718 3 points 1y ago
I’m not too knowledgeable about accessible formats, maybe others can comment. But it’s frustrating when people send me stuff with text on it that’s saved as an image, so my screen reader can’t interpret it.
CloudyBeep 2 points 1y ago
Use this guide for best results, regardless of whether you intend to distribute these as Word or PDF files (the guide covers converting from Word to PDF): https://webaim.org/techniques/word/
LovelyLovelyArtist [OP] 2 points 1y ago
Ah! Thank you!
Shadowwynd 2 points 1y ago
Braille Embossers (Braille Printers) tend towards heavy, loud, and expensive. The newer models can be talked over with difficulty and picked up by mere mortals, but are expensive; the older ones sound like a machine gun and feel like they were made from recycled boat anchors.
Here is a decent, no frills personal embosser ($3700):
https://www.indexbraille.com/en-us/braille-embossers/basic-d-v5?c=USD
This is where the prices on these things *start*. As others have mentioned, you also have to buy more expensive heavy paper. Fortunately, you can get basic software to translate text-->braille for free ( https://www.brailleblaster.org/ )(and plenty of software that you can pay for).
Unless you are going to be creating Braille all the time, buying your own embosser is probably not a wise investment. That being said, most state universities in the US have an embosser (Disability Services), or the Assistive Technology centers / organizations that focus on Blind services or Blind Rehabilitation, etc. might have a embosser you could use (especially for short runs, e.g. 20 pages or so) for free or a $1/page or something low.
If you are serious about this, keep your eyes peeled for older embossers on craigslist or similar groups.
There are also many commercial braille-printing services online, you send them text and money, they mail you embossed paper.
Here is one that I found through Google (never used them before):
http://www.braillebookstore.com/Braille-Printing
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As far as Alt-Text goes - Generally try to keep it to one sentence (or shorter), two sentences should be rare. Describe what it is/does, and how it looks if that is important. A key metric is relevance.
For example, if selling T-shirts, the important bits include: "T-Shirt", material, Size/Cut, shirt color, and what is on the shirt. If it isn't in the description then it needs to be in the alt-text.
If you are tagging a generic photo, it might be just "A woman helping a small child play on a playground" or "A woman helping a small child play on a playground during a fall festival" if the festival part was relevant. The things that are not relevant (probably) are going to be the woman's age, the child's age, the clothing, etc.
This, for example, is WAY too much: "A 33 year old woman with shoulder-length brunette hair is wearing a jacket made of dingo leather studded with amethyst, with an image of cheese adorning the back of the jacket. Her leggings are green. She is at a playground in Nantucket, Florida, on the 18th of October, at a fall festival. She is helping a small child with red hair dressed in a yellow pikachu shirt and blue pants to ride the merry-go-round."
Here is a decent, no frills personal embosser ($3700):
https://www.indexbraille.com/en-us/braille-embossers/basic-d-v5?c=USD
This is where the prices on these things *start*. As others have mentioned, you also have to buy more expensive heavy paper. Fortunately, you can get basic software to translate text-->braille for free ( https://www.brailleblaster.org/ )(and plenty of software that you can pay for).
Unless you are going to be creating Braille all the time, buying your own embosser is probably not a wise investment. That being said, most state universities in the US have an embosser (Disability Services), or the Assistive Technology centers / organizations that focus on Blind services or Blind Rehabilitation, etc. might have a embosser you could use (especially for short runs, e.g. 20 pages or so) for free or a $1/page or something low.
If you are serious about this, keep your eyes peeled for older embossers on craigslist or similar groups.
There are also many commercial braille-printing services online, you send them text and money, they mail you embossed paper.
Here is one that I found through Google (never used them before):
http://www.braillebookstore.com/Braille-Printing
-------------------
As far as Alt-Text goes - Generally try to keep it to one sentence (or shorter), two sentences should be rare. Describe what it is/does, and how it looks if that is important. A key metric is relevance.
For example, if selling T-shirts, the important bits include: "T-Shirt", material, Size/Cut, shirt color, and what is on the shirt. If it isn't in the description then it needs to be in the alt-text.
If you are tagging a generic photo, it might be just "A woman helping a small child play on a playground" or "A woman helping a small child play on a playground during a fall festival" if the festival part was relevant. The things that are not relevant (probably) are going to be the woman's age, the child's age, the clothing, etc.
This, for example, is WAY too much: "A 33 year old woman with shoulder-length brunette hair is wearing a jacket made of dingo leather studded with amethyst, with an image of cheese adorning the back of the jacket. Her leggings are green. She is at a playground in Nantucket, Florida, on the 18th of October, at a fall festival. She is helping a small child with red hair dressed in a yellow pikachu shirt and blue pants to ride the merry-go-round."
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