Email Newsletter Fail

gold letter y on black background

This morning I received an email where the content was predominantly jpegs. Nothing inherently wrong with this, I guess. However, putting blue-text “links” in the jpeg is almost useless. Sure, I can retype that 30-character URL, but most people are unlikely to do that. Lots of folks won’t even know to do that. This one was peculiar since the content is mostly text. Why a jpeg? Anyway, it pretty much ensures no click-through. Not to mention is not optimized for mobile, or for accessibility tools.

Personally, I retype these (if I only have an image to work with), though there are plenty of OCR tools to convert them to text. Often, the originator can provide the Word document that this was created in. One other option, which works reasonably well, is within Google docs.

  1. On your computer, go to drive.google.com.
  2. Upload the image
  3. Right-click on the desired file.
  4. Click Open with. Google Docs.
  5. The image file will be converted to a Google Doc, but some formatting might not transfer: Bold, italics, font size, font type, and line breaks are most likely to be retained.

Some Thoughts On Accessibility

high angle view of man with laptop on lap and phone in hand

Last week I joined a webinar: “Why We Need More Accessibility Designers“. The presenter is Anna Cook, an accessibility designer. I’ve long had an interest in accessibility and its impacts on technology. Technology can be a powerful solution for accessibility issues, and, of course, can create a whole set of new ones. I appreciated the discussion on the gaps that exist when it comes to addressing accessibility during design education (for my studies at Edmonds College, we have hit on the subject several times. Not with huge depth, but definitely greater than zero). 67% of accessibility issues originate in the design phase, and, of course, correcting issues during design is monumentally less expensive. We also touched on some specific elements, such as color.

Fortunately, this was recorded so you can watch it at your leisure.
https://youtu.be/dQVrfS74xyM


As is the case with these sorts of events, there were many things referenced during the discussion. I think most of them were added to the notes section of the YouTube video. I’ll drop my key links below, though.

My thoughts on this horrifying story: “Disability Activist Dies After United Airlines Destroyed Her Custom Wheelchair”

man showing distress

Earlier today I read this: Disability Activist Dies After United Airlines Destroyed Her Custom Wheelchair. Dear friends, please allow me to step upon my soapbox for a moment.

This event horrifies me. First, and foremost, United, and the airline industry writ large need to embrace that wheelchairs are beyond critical to their user’s health. Engaracia’s case demonstrates that dearly.

Her treatment by United, both in the hours at the airport (5 hours?) as well as the being strung along for resolution are monumentally horrifying. Simply stunning in the lack of basic empathy and compassion. As much as I want United to be held accountable for such dreadful negligence, I want to call out the entire airline industry. Over 10,000 wheelchairs destroyed per year is…disgusting…as is the collective shrug in their response.

I deeply value accessibility and diversity. To see something that so egregiously violates that value pains me.

Reflections on the Day 

I spent part of the evening watching the Google IO keynote. Seeing the diversity delighted me. Men, women, Whites, Asians, but I was solidly struck by lack of black people. Now, I was multitasking while watching, and I didn’t watch the full two hour one, opting for an abridged one. So, I might have missed the them. But that’s my big takeaway.

I’ve wondered how to increase diversity in tech. Deliberate action would the best. There’s a wide range of subjectivity to the phrase, which I’ll explore later.

One thing I love about tech: accessibility. I love the tools to bring more people to work, to have access to a living wage.

I’m delighted at the ever-increasing number of folks who are working. Thus is a key promise of tech. And though we’ve come a long way, there’s so much more.
Let’s get to work! Well, in the morning, perhaps.