must there be a title

Certified Library Post

[Image description: Twitter thread by 🦢 Randi Jo (@ RandiJoDalton). The first tweet reads: As a Mohawk librarian, when I defend audiobooks, it's personal. My people were telling stories orally long before stories came packaged in book form. There are many ways to "read" something. There are a thousand ways to tell a story.

The second tweet reads: When I assist a patron, I'm not helping them find the right book, I'm helping them find the right story. Whether it's a book or a movie or a comic or a video game—there is a reason that specific medium calls to you. There is no shame in the way your brain receives information.

The third tweet reads: The settler-colonial belief that stories in book form are superior is classist, racist, and simply untrue. It is virtue-signalling at its cringiest. Anyone who has a favorite voice actor will back me up. Alternative story telling methods make for rich sensory experiences.

The fourth tweet reads: A good story is all in how it unfolds. And how it unfolds is different for different folks. You have a unique perspective. Lean into it.

A reply from @ lcspoering reads: It's absolutely ableist as well. My patrons are blind, visually impaired, have physical and learning differences that make traditional print all but impossible to read, and, to a person, audiobooks are an incredibly vital part of their lives.

A second reply from @ lcspoering reads: Also! Audiobooks are not a new thing. As early as 1931, the American Foundation for the Blind began creating "talking books" for veterans of World War I and other visually-impaired people. Commercially, audiobooks began being produced and sold in the 50s. /End ID]

I saw a post that was essentially “switch the inches and feet in your height and that’s your fantasy height” which is super fun to imagine for several obvious reasons but I keep thinking about a maybe less obvious aspect of said scenario and feel obligated to attempt writing it out.

So you swap feet (‘) and inches (“) and now we have a bunch of extreme heights for previously average folks. Using this highly relevant Wikipedia table for reference, we see that average heights would mean that a whole bunch of folks would be like 3’5” or on the other end over 9’ feet tall.

But what I love is that everyone else, all the non-average folks, are still mostly going to be between 5 and 6 feet tall.. which means that the distribution of heights is not going to be smooth like we’re used to but instead super stair-step-y, with concentrations on the “x and a half” heights, repeating every foot, from 5” to 11’5”.

I can’t stop thinking about the effects that would have on .. well, everything.

How is airplane seating going to work? How does anything involving a seat work when you have to accommodate like 12 massively different sizes??

Thinking about how we’d adapt if this change just sort of happened vs. how we’d have adapted if this change was just how it always was is so fun.

Maybe we’d build an accessible society, with access for all baked in to not just our tools and technology, but our way of life.. or maybe we’d fuck it up you’d be at the grocery store all “for fucks sake their out of my cart size now I’m gonna be hanging off a five footer like a fucking idiot.”

I'm gonna say this, because I see it quite a lot, and it annoys me.

When posting a video, instead of saying "unmute" or "sound on", actually provide an audio description.

Sometimes, I can hear quite well, and I don't have a problem. But that's only sometimes. A lot of the time, I can't hear clearly, and everything is muffled.

Also, often when I see such videos, I'm in a situation where I can't turn on sound anyway.

And I'm not the only one. Lots of people have hearing impairments, and can't rely on sound alone to receive information.

So instead of saying "unmute" or "sound on", provide an audio description.

And if it's something that already has subtitles, but still saying "sound on", tell me why. Is the person speaking in a high pitched voice? Is there a loud animal in the background? Has everything been autotuned to the melody of caramelldansen?

I hope this rant has been coherent.

Tldr; put audio descriptions on videos.

as a general word of advice, whenever possible, please put spaces or commas when you write out long numbers. for people with dyscalculia, 2,000,000 is much much easier to manage than 2000000 and saves a lot of time counting zeroes and trying to space it out in your head. 

also consider writing the number out in letters (two million) next to the numerical version to be even more helpful.

im banning ablebodied and neurotypical people from making games unless they have someone neurodivergent and disabled helping them or testing their game. im literally so sick of being unable to play games because nobody bothered to take into account that certain levels are straight up impossible unless you have extremely percise fine motor skills and reaction times. im sick of being driven to tears from frustration with my very minor hand tremors. im sick of vague directions and fast dialogue leaving me completely lost. im sick of seeing people be unable to play games cus the lack of very simple things like changing keybinds.

i understand that some games are designed to be as frustrating as possible and im perfectly fine with that. but singleplayer splatoon 2 levels shouldnt be making me so frustrated that i wanted to bite my fingers off. its advertised towards kids.

neurotypical/ablebodied ppl can reblog but if you try to be funny im going to block you this post isnt a joke and if you cant take it seriously then ur just ableist <3

this ended up getting way more notes than i expected it to get and many people have asked for suggestions on how to make games more accessible so here are some accessibility improvements game devs can work on. these features encompass many disabilities, disorders, or general issues people may have. some of them might not be feasible for your game but these are meant to be general suggestions.

colorblind modes: if your game relies on different colors to convey information it’s absolutely essential to include accessibility options for those who are colorblind.

screen readers: is there text on the screen that includes crucial information? provide a screen reader as an option for low-vision people.

adjustable ui size: this is very helpful for anyone who is low-vision and needs things to be larger!

closed captioning and subtitles: and not just for dialogue! do it for stuff like footsteps and guns shooting! and if you can make it so the direction its coming from is indicated.

font replacement/adjustment: dyslexia is a thing that exists! consider that when making games!

ability to turn off motion controls: self explanatory, i have occasional hand tremors and dont want to deal with that sometimes.

button remapping: it seems minor but its actually incredibly important to anyone who may not be able to use all their fingers or both hands or even have hands at all. 

options to automatically button mash or just eliminating the need to repeatedly click the same button quickly: i think thats just bad design and i havent met a single person who enjoys that in a game. anyone with arthritis, general joint pain, or limited mobility in their fingers will tell you that its not fun.

unambiguous warnings: this one is important. too many times ive seen horror games try to be cute or quirky with their trigger warnings. if you’re worried about spoilers then make the specific trigger list something you need to click to reveal, but for the love of god just. give us unambiguous warnings. 

minimizing flashing or bright colors/giving options to turn off flashing or bright colors/adequate warnings for flashing or bright colors: this should be a given but im shocked at how often this is ignored.

bonus if you really want to cover your bases. an arachnophobia mode: while arachnophobia isnt really a disability ive seen multiple cases of people not being able to play games due to their arachnophobia. this one is something that ive never seen a game do, its always 3rd party mods that deal with this. having a mode where you can replace or disable any spiders in the game would make games way more accessible to players who have arachnophobia. as common as arachnophobia is i think it would be a useful implementation for many people.

most of all: research accessibility options and get feedback from disabled and neurodivergent people!

if any other disabled and neurodivergent people want to add to this list feel free to do so.

i know basically all of what im about to link is already covered concisely in this post, but game maker’s tool kit made a designing for disability video series that goes into more depth on the subject

is there an app that lets me make my phone dimmer than the lowest regular brightness settings let it go? my sensory overload issues have been really bad and right now i’m wearing ear defenders and sunglasses and my phone is as dim as it goes but it’s still too bright (i have an iphone 7 btw)

yes! go to settings and general and accessibility. then click display accommodations and reduce white point :-)

omg this is a lifesaver thank you so so so much

I don't get seasonal depression, I just get slightly sleepier and more irritable and mopey when I don’t get any sunlight, but when I said this to my doctor she was like “you should still get a lightbox” and I did and now I have way more energy.  The moral of the story is, if you spend time thinking to yourself “well I don’t actually have [diagnosable problem], I have [milder version that I can just ignore]”, you could instead of just ignoring it get the accommodation for the problem and see if it improves your life. I do not expect to remember this next time I “don’t actually have the real problem”, but maybe eventually I will learn.

We treat accommodations like something that you can only have if you’re really really desperately suffering and cannot function at all without them, but that’s… really really not the case. Or at least it shouldn’t be.

Not to uuuhhh highjack this post, but I have some experience with this. Not only does it corroborate the above but I have found that even you don’t have any need for whatever accommodation that also shouldn’t bar you from getting one if you just…

want it

see years ago my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, and as happens with progressing cancer her mobility was drastically reduced. To help combat this and allow her to retain independence at home Papa (my grandfather) got a shower chair. This is about as self-descriptive as it can get, it is a chair made of metal and plastic that sits in your shower or bathtub. I’m sure those with physical disabilities are already quite familiar with them, for those of you that aren’t just google it.

Eventually my grandmother passed. A couple years after my dad had to stay at Papa’s house for a couple weeks, for his own medical reasons. While there he discovered that Papa had kept the chair. And while Papa was old he was hardly infirm, he didn’t use a cane or have any severe mobility issues. Certainly none that would have affected his ability to stand in the shower. The conversation went more or less as such:

Dad: Why they hell did you keep the shower chair, dad? You don’t need it

Papa: Kevin, you wait until you use it. Then you’ll know why I kept it.

My dad was disbelieving tbh, to him chairs in showers when you don’t need them was a thing that like. Lazy rich people had. wtf could be so great about being able to sit in the shower? Why would an able-bodied person even need to? it’s a fucking shower? wash urself and then get out. Then he used the chair, and according to him it was like he’d had a proper religious revelation. Shortly after his return home (tbh the amount of time it took for him to take a shower sans chair) my dad went out and bought a shower chair.

The ensuing conversation with my mother went as such:

Mom: Kevin why did you buy that? We don’t need it!

Dad: Just use it once, this will change your life.

And it did. After using the chair for the first time my mom straight up wanted to know why they had never thought to get a chair for the shower before. Ever since we have had a chair in the shower.

It has proven itself invaluable.

I have no current mobility issues, and yet if I had to move house tomorrow a shower chair of my own would be one of the first things I purchase for my own home.

It’s so easy to fall into the trap of “this could make my life easier but do I really need it?” And y’know what maybe you don’t need it. Maybe you don’t need that accommodation, but maybe it would make your life easier anyway. When it comes to things that you keep in your home for personal use does it really matter? Besides there is always the very real chance that buying it now, when you don't’ need it but can afford it, will save your ass down the line when you suddenly do desperately need it.

I would also like to point out: if able-bodied people start using things that were originally designed as disability accommodations, they become normalised. They become acceptable. And then all of a sudden they’re widely available, they usually become cheaper, and disabled people don’t get shit for needing them.

Buy the damn shower chair. Get a JarKey so you don’t need gorilla strength to open the pickled onions. Install soft-touch taps. Revel in your newly comfortable life while also making the world a slightly more disability-friendly place.

*banging fist on table* CURB CUTTER EFFECT

i’ve stopped trash talking comic sans after learning the font is actually one of the only dyslexia-friendly fonts that come standard with most computers and i advocate for others doing the same

In the event that you would like to continue hating Comic Sans, other dyslexia-friendly alternatives include Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, Century Gothic and Trebuchet.

thank

Random fact: Verdana is one of the few fonts which was specifically designed to be as easy to read as possible, even at smaller type sizes. It was designed this way for use on screen, but the same principles apply in print too. This is part of why some Universities use Verdana as their default font for documents.

“In the event that you would like to continue hating Comic Sans” is one of the best things I’ve ever read on this website

@pedeka @lunariagold @darklittlestories

I’ll take Comic Sans over Arial any day. 

Century Gothic and Trebuchet are both quite handsome typefaces.

I’m partial to Century Gothic as well. It’s serif, but not boring.

There’s also a dyslexic font designed especially for dyslexic people to read.

You can install on your tablets, laptops and browers etc, so not only can you change things like documents into it, you can change websites into that font as well! 

I’m sure you’re bright enough to do a google search, but since I’m dumb enough to forget to post a link, here it is. Better late than never

https://www.dyslexiefont.com/en/dyslexie-font/

I default to arial for this reason, but I will now be defaulting to verdana or dyslexie. nice.

I don’t think I have dyslexia but that dyslexie font was the easiest fucking thing to read ever. Books should be written in that shit.

ALSO!!!

For computer reading, when you mix up lines of text, there’s a web browser app called Beeline Reader. It looks like this

The colors are also customizable, to an extent and while I don’t have dyslexia, I have adhd which makes reading large amounts of text harder and this helps A LOT.

This is dope. I freaking love how much more accessible this information is nowadays.

for our dyslexic ravens.

I always thought I was a decent reader, but holy crap that BeeLine made reading enjoyable lol

For my dyslexic followers! 

-FemaleWarrior, She/They 

Every day during lunch there will be several parties of two straight men having lunch together, that insist I seat them at a table for four even though there are only two of them. Because I guess homosexuality can be transmitted through accidental undertable foot contact now? Who knew?

Right now you might be asking “What happens when four straight men are having lunch together?”

Well what do you think?

They ask for a table for six. I shit you not.

I was airing my humorous grievance to our daytime bartender who only nodded and said. “They order wine and ask me to bring it in a pilsner glass.”

The cocktail server corroborated this saying some straight men will demand he show them the glass a drink comes in to make sure it’s suitably “masculine” looking before they order it.

And the dishwashers hate this because it makes their jobs much more complicated. It’s really not fun to have to drop what you’re doing to scrub dried red wine out of the bottom of a narrow pilsner glass. Especially when they have literally THOUSANDS of other dishes you have to do in a short amount of time.

Straight men ask for special accomodations for their straightness all the time.

That being said, Disabled folks, chronically ill folks, folks with severe allergies and other special needs:

NEVER feel ashamed to request the accomodations you require to enjoy your time at a restaurant. Hand to God we are happy to do it for you- a person who actually needs it.

It would honestly be a nice break from catering to all that fragile masculinity.

Everyone deserves the opportunity to dress their best. That’s why I’m so glad to be able to share Tommy Hilfiger’s innovative #TommyAdaptive collection with you. #TommyPartner

I know this is very important for people with disabilities and such but all I’m thinking is “Oh this is where super heroes get their shirts from.”

my mom’s arthritis makes buttons so hard for her omg 

Oh man that would be so nice for me, too, honestly. Buttons against my skin make me crazy with my autism. But fake buttons I might be able to do!