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GAAD: Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). You can read more about it here (link) and even see events going on.

Accessibility is crucial, and there’s a lot of different types of accessibility.

In this post, I want to talk about two types: Color Contrast and Image Descriptions.

Color Contrast

If you make any kind of visual content where you have text on a background (like an infographic or flyer), please check the color contrast here (link). This will tell you whether the contrast passes WCAG guidelines (more about that here: link). WCAG is Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and it’s designed to make sure web content is accessible.

Color contrast is one small part of that, and their guidelines include checking for things like colorblindness. If you’re not sure what color you’re using, you can check out this color picker (link) and/or use an extension/add-on (like this: link) to select a color from a web page.

Image Descriptions

Image Descriptions are just what they sound like: a description of an image. There are lots of reasons why image descriptions are helpful and lots of different types of people who benefit from them.

If you’re a visual content creator, please start describing your images. You’re the person who knows best what you created, and you’re the one who created it.

If you see someone else’s image and it doesn’t have a description, please check the reblogs with comments and see if someone has already described it. If they have, please reblog that version.

If there’s not a description, please take the time to write one if you have spoons. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Anything is better than nothing. There’s lots of guides out there, but my fav is this one from @keplercryptids(link).

We Can All Contribute

Even if you don’t make content yourself, and even if you don’t have spoons to write image descriptions, you can still make a difference by choosing not to reblog images without descriptions. I know it means missing out on reblogging some really cool stuff. But by taking that stance, you’re making your blog an accessible place, and that makes a huge difference.