6 ms·

I listened to a talk at a web development conference from one of the UK government's accessibility developers. Among other things, they do extensive accessibili

by _bxg1 8y ago

I listened to a talk at a web development conference from one of the UK government's accessibility developers. Among other things, they do extensive accessibility testing and discovered things you wouldn't expect. For example, to people who didn't grow up with them, dropdown boxes are apparently unintuitive, so gov.uk avoids them. I was very impressed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Mj7_0Lok0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Mj7_0Lok0

_bxg1 8y ago
I just realized, they cut out all the actual user videos in the video posted to YouTube... So that's unfortunate, but it's still a good talk.
reaperducer 8y ago
I find irony in the fact that this is a YouTube video with no text transcript, massively reducing its accessibility to both those with disabilities and those who aren't in an environment where they can sit and watch a 20-minute video. Does YouTube have the ability for authors to attach or display a text version of their video?
- coherentpony 8y ago
  It would be ironic if YouTube were owned by the UK Government. I don't think this particular situation is ironic. I think it's just simply irritating.
  - markovbot 8y ago
    YouTube provides the video uploader with extensive subtitle/CC capabilities, which they did not take advantage of.
- madeofpalk 8y ago
  Click the little 'CC' button in the toolbar. Video authors can upload closed captions to videos, or Youtube will autogenerate using voice-to-text which, while isn't perfect, does a decent enough job. Worth noting that this was a presentation at Texas JavaScript Conference, and the presenter likely had nothing to do with the video being uploaded to Youtube.
  - GordonS 8y ago
    IME, the autogenerated captions are spectacularly bad. I gave up even bothering to try them ages ago.
    - ago 8y ago
      They are bad, but it is better than nothing. I think if you are completely deaf they probably are not good enough. For myself, I have some hearing damage from working with fire alarms without hearing protection which makes it sometimes hard to understand speech with some background noise, it also doesn't help that English is not my native language. These subtitles make some videos that are hard for me to understand much better than without, because I am able to combine the hearing that I got with the subtitles to figure out what is being said. So yea, I hope they could improve them, but without them my experience is definitely worse.
    - madeofpalk 8y ago
      I think they're okay, given what they are. I've used them a few things to watch foreign language things. They're not perfect, but at least enough to understand what's happening.
  - elil17 8y ago
    Unfortunately auto generated captions suck especially for technical content. If people don’t caption their videos, d/Deaf people get left out.
- lambda 8y ago
  You can add subtitles or closed captions to the video. It also supports adding a transcript (like subtitles or closed captions, but without timing information), and it will use speech recognition to try to line it up with the video. You can also add a transcript or a link to a transcript in the video description.
  - satsuma 8y ago
    > It also supports adding a transcript (like subtitles or closed captions, but without timing information), and it will use speech recognition to try to line it up with the video. that is genuinely pretty cool and a good compromise between manually adding timestamps to captions and dealing with the hilarious but often very incorrect auto-captioning.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  1) The conference did the uploading, not the speaker 2) I think the videos were thrown up on YouTube in a "why not" sort of way, with minimal effort. Notice how the whole channel is just that specific event over that couple of days. I'm glad they posted them, but it was primarily an in-person event.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    In USA, institutions have run into problems with ADA and similar, blocking posting of videos unless they have been transcribed to text.
    - Ntrails 8y ago
      (and thus often simply not uploading at all as the cost outweighs the benefit)
      - reaperducer 8y ago
        Beats a lawsuit. https://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/target-case-study https://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/target-case-study
  - elil17 8y ago
    Deaf and hard of hearing people get routinely left out of the public sphere because people excuse themselves from their obligation to provide accessibly. People say “I wouldn’t make this if I had to caption it.” In reality, captioning isn’t that hard. Very few people are willing to go to the trouble of uploading a video but won’t caption it.
    - jolmg 8y ago
      > because people excuse themselves from their obligation to provide accessibly What obligation? They're not even obligated to put the video up; it's just a gesture of public service. Giving people the obligation to put captions when they upload videos for free consumption is like giving a beggar part of your lunch out of generosity and he complaining that he likes his sandwiches with more cheese. Not to specifically liken the deaf and hard of hearing to beggars, since all YouTube viewers are beggars in my analogy. However, the point I'm getting at is that when someone does you a favor like upload a video for free for your consumption you should generally be grateful and do what you can with it, not complain and demand more. It's just not the right attitude. It's like FOSS. You can ask the developer for more, but not demand it. I think if we want more captions from videos submitted without remuneration, it's gonna need to be automated. Have the machine do the work. I think YouTube already does this, now that I think about it. EDIT: Added some more on the analogy in case people thought I had something against deaf people.
- ecspike 8y ago
  The answer is yes. If they have the text of their video, they can upload it and Youtube will try to match it to the underlying speech. Youtube can do some automated transcription but it can be buggy. For funsies, I recently did the transcription of a video for a creator I enjoy. There was a blog post based on the video but it wasn't a 1:1 match so it had to be tweaked by hand. It was time consuming.
- nospeakersawork 8y ago
  Have you been living under a rock? Youtube has been automatically generating subtitles for every video for years already to the point where I don't even use my speakers at work anymore even though my hearing is perfectly fine. Do you even realize that this is a recording of a talk? If you have a hearing disability and are live at the event you're not going to understand a single word. In reality the situation is completely opposite: this video has massively increased the accessibility of the talk.
open-source-ux 8y ago
Re: accessibility - the GOV.UK team have produced some basic but helpful accessibility posters ("Do's and Don'ts"). The posters are on Github to allow anyone to use them. There are translations in multiple languages: https://github.com/UKHomeOffice/posters/tree/master/accessibility/dos-donts https://github.com/UKHomeOffice/posters/tree/master/accessib... Here is the (2016) blog post introducing the posters: https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/02/dos-and-donts-on-designing-for-accessibility/ https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/02/dos-and-donts-o...
- Cub3 8y ago
  Ironic that these posters (at least the en-UK versions) are in PDF

by _bxg1 8y ago

_bxg1 8y ago

I just realized, they cut out all the actual user videos in the video posted to YouTube... So that's unfortunate, but it's still a good talk.

reaperducer 8y ago

I find irony in the fact that this is a YouTube video with no text transcript, massively reducing its accessibility to both those with disabilities and those who aren't in an environment where they can sit and watch a 20-minute video. Does YouTube have the ability for authors to attach or display a text version of their video?

coherentpony 8y ago
It would be ironic if YouTube were owned by the UK Government. I don't think this particular situation is ironic. I think it's just simply irritating.
- markovbot 8y ago
  YouTube provides the video uploader with extensive subtitle/CC capabilities, which they did not take advantage of.
madeofpalk 8y ago
Click the little 'CC' button in the toolbar. Video authors can upload closed captions to videos, or Youtube will autogenerate using voice-to-text which, while isn't perfect, does a decent enough job. Worth noting that this was a presentation at Texas JavaScript Conference, and the presenter likely had nothing to do with the video being uploaded to Youtube.
- GordonS 8y ago
  IME, the autogenerated captions are spectacularly bad. I gave up even bothering to try them ages ago.
  - ago 8y ago
    They are bad, but it is better than nothing. I think if you are completely deaf they probably are not good enough. For myself, I have some hearing damage from working with fire alarms without hearing protection which makes it sometimes hard to understand speech with some background noise, it also doesn't help that English is not my native language. These subtitles make some videos that are hard for me to understand much better than without, because I am able to combine the hearing that I got with the subtitles to figure out what is being said. So yea, I hope they could improve them, but without them my experience is definitely worse.
  - madeofpalk 8y ago
    I think they're okay, given what they are. I've used them a few things to watch foreign language things. They're not perfect, but at least enough to understand what's happening.
- elil17 8y ago
  Unfortunately auto generated captions suck especially for technical content. If people don’t caption their videos, d/Deaf people get left out.
lambda 8y ago
You can add subtitles or closed captions to the video. It also supports adding a transcript (like subtitles or closed captions, but without timing information), and it will use speech recognition to try to line it up with the video. You can also add a transcript or a link to a transcript in the video description.
- satsuma 8y ago
  > It also supports adding a transcript (like subtitles or closed captions, but without timing information), and it will use speech recognition to try to line it up with the video. that is genuinely pretty cool and a good compromise between manually adding timestamps to captions and dealing with the hilarious but often very incorrect auto-captioning.
_bxg1 8y ago
1) The conference did the uploading, not the speaker 2) I think the videos were thrown up on YouTube in a "why not" sort of way, with minimal effort. Notice how the whole channel is just that specific event over that couple of days. I'm glad they posted them, but it was primarily an in-person event.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  In USA, institutions have run into problems with ADA and similar, blocking posting of videos unless they have been transcribed to text.
  - Ntrails 8y ago
    (and thus often simply not uploading at all as the cost outweighs the benefit)
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      Beats a lawsuit. https://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/target-case-study https://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/target-case-study
- elil17 8y ago
  Deaf and hard of hearing people get routinely left out of the public sphere because people excuse themselves from their obligation to provide accessibly. People say “I wouldn’t make this if I had to caption it.” In reality, captioning isn’t that hard. Very few people are willing to go to the trouble of uploading a video but won’t caption it.
  - jolmg 8y ago
    > because people excuse themselves from their obligation to provide accessibly What obligation? They're not even obligated to put the video up; it's just a gesture of public service. Giving people the obligation to put captions when they upload videos for free consumption is like giving a beggar part of your lunch out of generosity and he complaining that he likes his sandwiches with more cheese. Not to specifically liken the deaf and hard of hearing to beggars, since all YouTube viewers are beggars in my analogy. However, the point I'm getting at is that when someone does you a favor like upload a video for free for your consumption you should generally be grateful and do what you can with it, not complain and demand more. It's just not the right attitude. It's like FOSS. You can ask the developer for more, but not demand it. I think if we want more captions from videos submitted without remuneration, it's gonna need to be automated. Have the machine do the work. I think YouTube already does this, now that I think about it. EDIT: Added some more on the analogy in case people thought I had something against deaf people.
ecspike 8y ago
The answer is yes. If they have the text of their video, they can upload it and Youtube will try to match it to the underlying speech. Youtube can do some automated transcription but it can be buggy. For funsies, I recently did the transcription of a video for a creator I enjoy. There was a blog post based on the video but it wasn't a 1:1 match so it had to be tweaked by hand. It was time consuming.
nospeakersawork 8y ago
Have you been living under a rock? Youtube has been automatically generating subtitles for every video for years already to the point where I don't even use my speakers at work anymore even though my hearing is perfectly fine. Do you even realize that this is a recording of a talk? If you have a hearing disability and are live at the event you're not going to understand a single word. In reality the situation is completely opposite: this video has massively increased the accessibility of the talk.

open-source-ux 8y ago

Re: accessibility - the GOV.UK team have produced some basic but helpful accessibility posters ("Do's and Don'ts"). The posters are on Github to allow anyone to use them. There are translations in multiple languages: https://github.com/UKHomeOffice/posters/tree/master/accessibility/dos-donts https://github.com/UKHomeOffice/posters/tree/master/accessib... Here is the (2016) blog post introducing the posters: https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/02/dos-and-donts-on-designing-for-accessibility/ https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/02/dos-and-donts-o...

Cub3 8y ago
Ironic that these posters (at least the en-UK versions) are in PDF