Friendly but firm reminder that neither image descriptions nor audio/video transcripts should be in weird fonts, colors, or small text. With audio transcripts, it's presumably obvious why readability makes or breaks a caption, and with image descriptions, I genuinely understand the source of the misconceptions, but not all people who use IDs use screen readers. Some use large text instead, and weird fonts mess with that.
This is text that I personally have to squint to read more than a few words of, because the font has such a low weight.
["Chat" text reads: "This is text that I personally have to squint to read more than a few words of, because the font has such a low weight."]
Having to read text like this might be difficult for some people, or possible but eyestrain-inducing for others.
[Italicized text reads: "Having to read text like this might be difficult for some people, or possible but eyestrain-inducing for others."]
Here, the font is fine, but the colors are too low-contrast to be read on lots of tumblr themes.
[Green text reads: "Here, the font is fine, but the colors are too low-contrast to be read on lots of tumblr themes."]
And this is just way too small to be a useful accessibility feature for anyone who reads image descriptions directly, as well as anyone who reads transcripts.
[Small text reads: "And this is just way too small to be a useful accessibility feature for anyone who reads image descriptions directly, as well as anyone who read transcripts."]
For people using desktop who can't read some of this text, XKit Rewritten's AccessKit provides options to disable special colors and fonts (not to mention a nice alt text display option). But to my knowledge, there's no workaround for mobile users. That's why it's critical to include captions that are accessible themselves!
If you're on desktop and able to copy-paste, and a post you intend to reblog has an inaccessibly formatted ID or transcript, please consider taking just a second to copy the description in plain text. (Same for IDs under read more tbh, because we all know how glitchy that function can be.)
I do this often, and have never had anyone get mad about it — only the occasional sincere question as to why. Addressing misconceptions from well-intentioned users — and trust me, I used to have misconceptions too — is the best way to make Tumblr (or any other comparable website) more accessible, one or two posts at a time.
(guide to image descriptions) / (second alternate guide)
(guide to describing tags) / (make your blog's colors readable)
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