🎙 Inclusive Social - The Power of Accessible Content

Thank you everyone for attending Inclusive Social: The Power of Accessible Content with @AlexaHeinrich and @caitlin.grogan today! 

Here’s some outstanding questions from today’s event. If you didn’t get a chance to get your question in, please feel free to drop them below! 👇

• From @sequoyah.moore, is there a difference between alt text and image descriptions for social posts?
• Question from @qchow, can you explain more about the difference of using subtitles vs closed captioning?
• Shawn asked, what tools are available to create accessible digital content?
• From @ruby.disobey, what would you suggest to have more accessible images/gifs?
• @alyssa.arns asked, have you seen good examples of image descriptions for videos on TikTok?

These are some of the additional resources we shared today:

Emojipedia

Accessible Social  - Alexa’s website to learn the latest on accessibility best practices and updates!

Upcoming Arboretum Events

🔴 Stay tuned and subscribe to this thread to get an alert when the recording becomes available!

• From @sequoyah.moore, is there a difference between alt text and image descriptions for social posts? Yes! Alt text is a short, concise text description, however, you can make it longer if you want it to be more descriptive. It’s added to an image tag in the HTML code of a webpage or through a platform’s designated alt text field. While normally brief, alt text should still accurately convey the content and function of an image. It’s also commonly referred to as an “alt tag” or “alt attribute” when used in web development projects.
  
  An image description, on the other hand, is a more detailed description of an image and it’s provided in the content of the webpage, typically near the image or as a visible caption. On a social media platform, it would be in the body of your post.
  
  The purpose of an image description is to provide additional context and information about a visual, beyond what can be conveyed in short alt text. Image descriptions may include details such as the colors, shapes, sizes, textures, and other elements in an image, as well as its context and meaning.
  
  In short, you should think of an image description as a more robust version of alt text. It gives additional details to create a more informative description of an image and is normally preferred to alt text when it comes to accessibility, but both are acceptable methods for creating accessible images.
   
• Question from @qchow, can you explain more about the difference of using subtitles vs closed captioning? There are two types of captions, closed and open. Closed captions can be toggled on and off based on the preferences of the viewer. They can also be moved and resized. Closed captions are a common feature on platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, as well as streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok all have varying degrees of closed captioning capabilities for their video features.
  
  Open captions are permanently embedded into a video during post-production and always visible. They cannot be turned off, moved, or resized by a viewer. You’ll typically see open captions on a video when closed captions aren’t available.

  
  Captions are sometimes referred to as subtitles, but subtitles are actually language-specific captions intended for viewers who do not understand and/or speak the language being spoken in the media.

  Subtitles can be closed or open depending on the production of the video, but it's important to note that subtitles do not include auditory information like music descriptions or sound effects because their primary function is the translation of language. Try to think of subtitles as a subcategory of captions.

• Shawn asked, what tools are available to create accessible digital content? Depends on what kind of digital content you’re trying to create. For captions, there are a lot of great apps out there like AutoCap, MixCaptions, Clipomatic, Kapwing, and Clips. You can also use YouTube to create closed captions for a video and SRT caption files.
   
• From @ruby.disobey, what would you suggest to have more accessible images/gifs? Definitely make sure to write image descriptions for them! When it comes to GIFs, avoid using any with rapid blinking or flashing and give users the ability to pause or stop GIFs.
   
• @alyssa.arns asked, have you seen good examples of image descriptions for videos on TikTok? I’m no longer a TikTok users, so unfortunately I don’t know of any good examples off the top of my head, but perhaps someone else in the Arb has some favorites! I will say that written descriptions for videos in TikTok are probably a little difficult to accomplish because of the character limit for post captions.

Here are more questions from our session today:

• @erica.hanson asked: are captions auto-created or do we need to create text for videos for closed captioning?
• Abel asked: Is there a preference for video captions to be opened (burned in) or closed (viewer option)?
• @carolyn.macleod would love thoughts on auto captions
• @lisa.rodrigo asked @AlexaHeinrich, how/why did you become so passionate about this?
• Gaby asked, when it comes to audio how would you be as accessible as possible for TikTok's and Reels?
• From @christi.newman, what do you suggest for a color ADA checker?

Great session Alexa and Caitlin. I stumbled across Alexa awhile back and have adopted the habit of #CapitalizingHashtags. Next goal is to become more consistent with alt tag descriptions. 

• @erica.hanson asked: are captions auto-created or do we need to create text for videos for closed captioning? If you ever use a service or platform that auto-generates captions for you (like YouTube), make sure to edit those captions so they’re accurate. Auto-captions are often called auto-CRAPtions by the disabled community because of how bad they initially are. Editing is normally needed to make them accurate and accessible.
   
• Abel asked: Is there a preference for video captions to be opened (burned in) or closed (viewer option)? Closed captions are normally preferred because they offer a more customizable experience for viewers in terms of visibility, position, and size. Open captions should really only be used when closed captioning isn’t available or auto-captions can’t be edited.
   
• @carolyn.macleod would love thoughts on auto captions. Auto-captions are often called auto-CRAPtions by the disabled community because of how bad they initially are. Editing is normally needed to make them accurate and accessible.
   
• @lisa.rodrigo asked @AlexaHeinrich, how/why did you become so passionate about this? Great question! My accessibility journey can actually be found on the about page of the Accessible Social website.
   
• Gaby asked, when it comes to audio how would you be as accessible as possible for TikToks and Reels? TikTok videos, Reels, and Stories are kind of tricky because we have limited space for written content normally. At best, you can usually have an audio component like narration and a visual component like captions on them. If you want any digital content to be truly accessible, it should include three things:
  • A visual component for users who rely on their sight to consume content.
  • An audio component for users who rely on their hearing to consume content.
  • A readable text component such as a written post or tweet, transcript, image alt text, or video description for users who rely on assistive devices like screen readers to consume content. Readable text can also double as your audio component if a user is having their screen reader read the content aloud to them. Flattened copy such as text on an image or open captions does not count because it cannot be identified by a screen reader as readable text.
     
• From @christi.newman, what do you suggest for a color ADA checker? My favorite is the Adobe Color Site! Not only can you check color contrast, but it also has a great color blind checker!

Thank you Alexa for answering my question, and a bigger thank you to Laura for posting them here! Too few webinar hosts take the time to post even to follow up to ensure all questions get answered. 🙌

You’re so welcome, Lisa! Thanks for tuning into the webinar. And I totally agree, Laura is amazing! 

Thank you @lisa.rodrigo and @AlexaHeinrich for your kind words. There were so many quality questions, I didn’t want any of them missed!

Congratulations to @sequoyah.moore and @jenna.hennessy for winning a copy of @AlexaHeinrich‘s Image Accessibility guide! I’ll be sending you a DM to get your information for shipping. We still have 3 more guides to giveaway so please continue to share your questions and discuss your learnings from yesterday’s session @AlexaHeinrich and @caitlin.grogan are eagerly waiting to respond.

If you missed yesterday’s event, here’s the recording:

*just* discovered my company’s “stance” on accessibility. Does anybody else go out of their way to make a statement like this? 

https://cradlepoint.com/about-us/accessibility/

This webinar was fantastic, thanks to you all! I am already an Alexa fan/follower but was able to pick up some new tips from the session. I really appreciate the input here on closed versus open captions and have passed that on to our videographer. Also, the new Adobe accessibility check tool posted in the Q&A here is so much improved over what’s existed before and what I settled on using, it will make a huge difference. I’ve really been pushing education around accessibility, also due to personal experience leading to a personal passion, and this session gave me some great stuff to report back on to really drive the why.

@AlexaHeinrich, thank you so very much for sharing your expertise with us. And thank you to @LauraPorcincula and the Sprout team for hosting and posting!

Thank you, @AlexaHeinrich for a great webinar! There were many opportunities to make social media content more inclusive that I was not aware of before, and the practical advice and resources you shared are much appreciated.

@LauraPorcincula, thank you for hosting and for sharing the recording here. Is there a direct link to the recording I could use to share it with my team who wasn’t able to attend (and aren’t on the Arboretum)?

I also wanted to share @carly.hill ‘s great article on Social Media Accessibility: 8 Guidelines to Make Social Media Posts More Accessible. We mentioned it during the event but hadn’t yet shared the resource. (Special shoutout to @lisa.rodrigo who asked for it!)

Hi @arizona.state parks, you can share the link to this page to your colleagues. We are open for anyone to join the Arboretum now!

Thank you @AlexaHeinrich and @caitlin.grogan for a great webinar. I missed the live event but just watched the recording and found it very useful. I have been on a career break to have and raise my family so stepping back into the digital world has been very overwhelming especially when technologies and social platforms move so fast so the webinar has been very useful. 

Anyway, my question to @AlexaHeinrich - I also am a team of one and I want accessibility to be an important part of the content I create. How did you get your wider team to support you and help with making all our content accessible? 

Won’t lie, it helps that I have what my father calls a “brutal” personality. I’m quite bull-headed and forceful when needed lol. But outside of that, my team was already vaguely aware of digital accessibility, but only when it came to our website and blogs, so I had a base understanding to work with. For folks who don’t have that luxury, I suggest this 4-point argument where you point out that:

• We should just care about the experience that our followers have when they engage with us online.
• Everyone will be impacted by disability at some point in the life, either through age, illness, or injury.
• Accessibility does actually have an impact on your marketing efforts and can help you reach more people with your content.
• You could face significant legal trouble if you don’t make your content accessible.

That last point usually scares people pretty well, but I normally try to use the compassionate approach first!

Happy weekend, everyone! I’m still riding a high from all of the insights from @AlexaHeinrich last week. I wanted to share some exciting alt text news for Sprout customers that you may have missed in another post on the Arb.

From @mandy.patterson :

Advanced and Premium Plan customers can now add Alt text descriptions to images in the Asset Library. By adding Alt Text, you can ensure that you're creating a more inclusive experience for the audiences that consume your content on social. 

Check out the Help Center for more information!

WOOOOOOOO! Very exciting @caitlin.grogan! 🎉