Tag: images

Column: Bloomington botches accessibility of document about accessibility

In a news release issued on Monday evening,  the city of Bloomington announced that it is inviting feedback on its ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Transition Plan.

ACCESSIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR DOCUMENTS ON THE CITY WEBSITE All files uploaded to the City website, or otherwise electronically distributed to the public, need to be fully accessible. Accessible includes, but is not limited to,readable by assistive technology, images have captions and/or alternative text descriptions, and the use of high color contrast when placing text over an image. ACCESSIBILITY CHECKLIST Before uploading your file, or distributing it electronically, complete this checklist to ensure the document is accessible. ADD DESCRIPTIVE CAPTIONS OR ALTERNATIVE TEXT FOR ANY IMAGE(S) IN THE DOCUMENT. In Word 2013: Add alt text Right click on image and select "Format Picture." Select the "Layout & Properties" icon and choose "Alt Text." Enter appropriate alt text only in the Description field (not the Title field). Add caption: Right click on image and select "Insert caption." Enter caption. In Google Docs: » Add alt text: Right click on image and select "Alt Text." Enter a title and description for the image. Click "Ok" USE AN ACCESSIBILITY CHECKER TOOL In Word 2013: Open file Click on "File" in the upper left-hand corner. On the Info page, click on the down arrow next to "Check for Issues" Select "Check Accessibility" Correct any issues found in "Inspection Results" In Adobe Acrobat Pro (paid version): Open file Click on "Tools" On the Tools page, locate and click on the Accessibility tool under"Protect & Standardize" Click on "Accessibility Check" on the right side of the screen. Click "Start Checking" on next screen. Correct any issues listed in the report.
This image, with no digital text included, is part of the city of Bloomington’s draft ADA Transition Plan.

But the city does not seem to be interested in feedback on the document from anyone except those who can see perfectly well.

The ADA is all about making the world accessible to everyone. Many accessibility efforts are familiar, like installation of sidewalk curb ramps at intersections or designation of parking spaces near building entrances.

But making the world accessible is supposed to include making electronic documents readable for those whose vision is not good enough to see the words.

That’s done by ensuring that any of the word images in a document have a digital counterpart that can be read by text-to-voice screen reading software.

One approach to making documents accessible is to use some kind of OCR (optical character recognition) software to add digital text to word images. Continue reading “Column: Bloomington botches accessibility of document about accessibility” →