Exploring the Digital Nation: Computer and Internet Use at Home

Exploring the Digital Nation: Computer and Internet Use at Home (PDF link) is a fascinating 2011 study by the U.S. Department of Commerce. It's a definite must-read if you're marketing yourself online, to be aware of the number of people who may not have access to what you're sharing.

A computer lab, via Flickr user GWSA.

In the report, it's noted that 43% of people with disabilities have broadband access at home, compared to 72% of the general population. When the factors were controlled for demographic variables such as income and education the gap dropped to a slightly more welcome 6%.

According to the report, the reasons cited for not having broadband access at home were:

• Lack of need or interest (47%)
• Lack of affordability (24%)
• Inadequate computer (15%) 

As companies, organizations, and governments become more dependent on the internet to distribute information, forms and other media, we need to be aware of the people who may be missing out. This report helps highlight those individuals and perhaps provides a path for us to begin including them.

Using Google Hangouts? Add Live Captions

If you use Google Hangouts for marketing, or to increase communication with your website viewers, consider adding live captions to your stream. Google announced this service earlier this year at the National Association of the Deaf conference.

While in a Hangout, you have the option to provide live captions yourself or go through a professional service, StreamText. Before using either, you'll need to install the app.

An example of Google+ Hangout captions, via Google.

 Besides making a Hangout accessible for your deaf or hard of hearing audience, a captioned transcript can be very useful to refer to after the fact.

As I wrote in my other blog in June, I'd still love to see the addition of automated captions (such as those Google already uses on YouTube videos) to Google+ Hangouts, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

3 Reasons to Caption Your Videos

1. Accessibility
Of course, this is the #1 reason why video should be captioned or subtitled* online. If you are trying to get a message out to a large audience, you should make sure everyone in your audience can see your message.

2. Marketing Value

The text of captions or subtitles becomes a reference text for the web - basically, Google and other search engines search all text on the web, and that includes captions. Your caption text file will have marketing value for you because it will enable Google and other search engines to point people who are searching for you in the right direction. A video with no captions can only be indexed by search engines via the title, tags, and description. Check out this Business 2 Community article for more information.

3. Ease of Reference
Captioning your videos means you can easily find them later, and you can pinpoint exactly what you're trying to find within a video without playing it all the way through. The Daily Show uses closed caption files to hunt down specific clips they want to use on the show, according to this article on User Interface Engineering.

* The difference between captioning and subtitled can be subtle and some people use them interchangeably while others differentiate. In general, a captioned video means that text will display all sounds that occur on screen, and words exactly as they are spoken. Subtitles will often subtitle only the spoken word and may also be translated into other languages.

Google Adds Accessibility Features in Apps

Google has added some accessibility features to Google Apps. Check out more information on the official Google blog at this link: Google Official Blog

There's a good rundown of the new features on their official Google Group at this link: Google Groups

Some of the improvements they've added include Optical Character Recognition for PDFs and images (allowing screen readers to read them), custom colors for Google Calendar, improved keyboard accessibility, and button consistency.

How to Add Alt Text to Images in Blogger

Click on any of the images in this post to view them at original size.

The "alt" tag in HTML refers to the "alternate text" for an image, used in case the image cannot be displayed. The image below contains alt text.

In order to view alt text in a normal browser, such as Firefox, Internet Explorer or Google Chrome, you can typically either hover over it or right-click to see the properties of the image. (In Firefox, the alt text on an image will show up under "View Image Info."

For someone using a screen reader, which is a software program that reads webpages aloud to someone with sight difficulties, the alt text of an image will be read. If there is no alt text the image will be skipped.

In order to add alt text to an image in Blogger, first add your image to your blog post as normal, or edit a post containing images. Next, click on the image while you are in the editing screen. You will see several options pop up under your cursor.

While it may appear that you should click "Caption," you should actually click "Properties." Clicking "Caption" will allow you to add text visible under the image, and while this would be read by a screen reader, it might not be clear that the caption belongs to an image.

Clicking "Properties," you will see this dialog box:

I would suggest typing the same text into both boxes so that your description can serve as both the title text of the image and the alt text. Then click "OK" and you are finished.

You can also edit the alt text by going into Blogger's HTML editing mode. Inside of the image tag, add "alt=your text here," like so:

<img src="mycats.png" alt="My cats, Isis and Sneakers">

The Blogger-generated code may look more complicated than this, but that's all there is to it.

The American Foundation for the Blind has several suggestions on their website for how to write effective alt text.

Alt text will also show up when using Pinterest to pin from websites, which makes it doubly useful.

Welcome to Accessibility Basics

Welcome to Accessibility Basics. This website is a project intended to assist Web content creators and programmers with information on how to make their websites, videos, images, and other media accessible for those who need it online.

This website will provide examples, statistics, research data and other information to help you help others experience the content you create to its fullest.

A Little About Me
My name is Megan Sparks and I created this website as a project for my TWC 421 - Principles of Writing with Technology class. I'm currently attending Arizona State University for a bachelor's degree in Technical Communication.

I am profoundly deaf and have worn hearing aids since I was four years old. I created the blog Hearing Sparks in 2009 in order to share information about hearing loss and my experiences. I work fulltime at a public library in Arizona, and part of my job duties include assisting with ADA accessibility and communicating via social media on behalf of the library.

I hope that you find this website useful in helping others!