What are the best content accessibility tools for optimizing images and multimedia?

For Alt text now a days I am using GPT vision to speed up the process. Ai has been really good at understanding every detail of the images I upload. Google has been picking up my images recently after using gpt vision to write the alt texts. The accuracy of it is mind blowing.

In my experience, alt text is essential from an SEO perspective. I use Canva and Alt Text.ai for generating alt text for images, providing them with suitable informative descriptions. For example, if your image is about a cricketer who won the Man of the Match award, your alt text should be: "Cricketer [Name] won Man of the Match against [Team].”

I'm excited to see how AI tools really help in building out your Alt Texts! For example, Ahrefs (a great SEO tool), now includes an AI to help you do this. Another good alternative is AltText.ai (which is probably the best one right now & provides many integrations). Alt text is so commonly forgotten or ignored due to time and budget constraints. Which is unfortunate, because there are many benefits to adding this information. It's better for SEO in every respect. It's better, if not essential, for a large swatch of users - such as people with visual impairments or otherwise using screen readers.

Alt text is the short description of an image that can be longer than title but shorter than image description. It provides information to web crawlers about the contents of the image. Nowadays, with AI, Google is capable of understanding image objects to some extent. But still, alt text helps understand image with how it is used in particular content. Additionally, alt comes handy in case of broken images, alt text is displayed in place of that image. Ultimately, it helps to rank your image in image search, which can be a good traffic source apart from web search.

Although AI can be a valuable tool in generating alternative text, it is crucial to have human oversight to ensure the accuracy and appropriateness of the descriptions, especially when dealing with complex or subjective content. It is important to consider the ethical implications and ensure the conclusiveness of the training data when deploying AI for accessibility purposes.

In my experience, using audio description has changed the way I consume media. I have low vision, so I can barely see the tv. With audio descriptions, I can stop focusing on trying to focus and just enjoy the media!

I worked in a theatre early in my career, handling accessibility and part of that was developing audio described theatre performances for vision impaired audience members. The ability to include everyone is so vital when it comes to theatre and all media. I believe audio description is key to being as inclusive as possible to a wider audience.

Platforms such as “Rev.com” or “Amara” offer captioning services for videos, adding text captions that accurately represent spoken content for deaf or hard of hearing viewers. And CapCut is quite successful

CapCut: una app de edición de video con herramientas intuitivas para crear subtítulos. Ofrece varias ventajas para mejorar la accesibilidad: facilita la creación y edición de subtítulos, agregándolos de forma rápida y sencilla. Personalización de estilo, tamaño, color y posición de los subtítulos para que se ajusten mejor a su contenido y sincronización automática con el audio del video, traduciéndolo en varios idiomas para una mayor accesibilidad.

YouTube: YouTube provides features for adding closed captions and subtitles to videos, making them accessible to users who are deaf or hard of hearing. You can also add audio descriptions to provide additional context for visually impaired users.

When it comes to hosting videos on your website, Wistia is a reliable option that also offers caption generation. There are two options: AI generated (free, 92% accuracy) or human reviewed ($2.50/minute, 99% accuracy). 3play.com is another option for generating captions without video hosting. You can also get translations with this service.

Desde mi perspectiva, herramientas como Rev, Amara, Descript y YouTube Studio destacan en la creación de subtítulos para hacer que el contenido audiovisual sea accesible. Estas opciones ofrecen soluciones efectivas para mejorar la inclusión y la igualdad de acceso en línea.

I've found the mark of a great UX designer, is when they already know to use Color Contrast Analyzers (CCA) in their work. You might be surprised how a "few shades of difference" in color, can make a big difference. Some tips: * Don't forget to include your printed content, PDFs, and images (especially background images) in your analysis. It's not just web content that's affected by color contrast. * There are many free tools available online to get you started. But a plugin or extension will ultimately be better for the design team. * Be sure to read the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) requirements, as they are the global standard for color contrast and readability. Good it be familiar with it.

Low contrast design is a hard bounce for me when I am trying to purchase goods online. If you can’t be bothered to meet ADA standards, I can’t be bothered to buy your product!

Tools like “WebAIM Color Contrast Checker” or “Contrast Checker” help assess the color contrast between text and background, ensuring readability for users with low vision or color blindness.

Another upside of SVGs is that they tend to be smaller (in file size) than other image formats, which makes your website load faster, which improves a wide swatch of website & marketing performance metrics. One downside of SVGs is that they're not compatible with every browser or operating system, which can create rendering issues, which can create UX issues which can be challenging to resolve. Also, SVGs are also not always interchangeable with JPG/PNG (you have to make this determination on your own). However, if it is at all possible to use SVGs, it is often the better or best option.

Beginners in SVG creation can use Figma as their main tool for making such scalable vector graphics. It is free and not as difficult as Illustrator.

En mi opinión, herramientas como SVG-Edit, Adobe Illustrator y Inkscape son esenciales para garantizar la accesibilidad de los gráficos vectoriales escalables. Estas opciones permiten crear contenido visual adaptable y mejorar la experiencia del usuario en línea.

Hot tip for this: use the mobile version of your app for screen reader tests. This will tell you immediately whether you are presenting all the page elements in the "correct order" i.e. in a logical manner that a visually impaired person can understand what's on the page and what to do next. Why is this better? Because there are more constraints on a mobile interface. Meaning it's easier to "expand out" than "focus in" if you need to make changes to your layouts.

Especialmente para los ecommerce, es muy importante implementar estrategias que diversifiquen las formas de búsqueda. Ofrecer a los usuarios la posibilidad de buscar utilizando su método preferido, ya sea voz, texto o imágenes y adoptar un enfoque centrado en dispositivos móviles te ayudará a brindar una experiencia de compra personalizada y con mayor accesibilidad.

Website builders such as WordPress or Squarespace offer mobile-responsive design features, ensuring that images and multimedia content are accessible and optimized for viewing on various mobile devices.

I find it essential to use Photoshop and Dreamweaver, supplemented by MS Word. It is essential to work from basic content tools like these, not to depend on supposed work-saving, time-saving content management systems - especially AI. We need to use our own, honest, expression.