Microsoft has always had a great philosophy around accessibility and introduced me to the idea of temporary disability. It’s a great way to broaden one’s perspective on how much impact making your product more accessible has.

@carnage4life

Heavy Accent appears to be a LARPer

But yes, fully agree with Inclusive design and that accessibility has the potential to help everyone

@mechmouse @carnage4life I fear this icon is actually racist and/or classist, I read it as "if can't understand you, you're an uncivilized barbarian".
@KekunPlazas @mechmouse @carnage4life there's a definite risk, but realistically in actual practical terms a mismatch between one's accent and what the community one's (temporarily?) in can easily understand can be an issue. The wording probably needs to be more nuanced, but hard to do on a simple chart I guess.
@KekunPlazas @mechmouse @carnage4life I assume the context of this graphic is trying to reduce practical barriers, even if situational, so maybe not so bad.

@KekunPlazas But that is entirely relative to *your* frame of reference. If they can't understand *you*, maybe you're the uncivilized one?

The point is that you or anyone else can be out of your time or place and that requires accommodations too.

@mechmouse @carnage4life

@mechmouse @carnage4life I'd change it to "non-native speaker" since the bigger problem for the user/speaker is that they can't express themselves as well in the 2nd language, they lack the vocabulary and fluency. "Heavy accent" is a problem for the listener/software. Accessibility is about the user.
@carnage4life This is very sweet and I appreciate the inclusivity, but the "heavy accent" art is cracking me up
@carnage4life @re_chief the heavy accent person should simply move outside the area where accents are heavy, perhaps a different room or further down the road where it’s not so heavy anymore
@re_chief @carnage4life I can't stop thinking about the designer who got the assignment to draw this figure. There were probably some tense meetings that led to the eventual creative solution, based on the theory that any crusading knights who might object to the depiction have been dead for 900 years.

@masto I believe credit for this goes to Kat Holmes. I saw her speak at a conference about 15 years ago about this project!

https://designmuseumfoundation.org/we-design-online-exhibition/kat-holmes/

@re_chief @carnage4life

Kat Holmes | We Design Online Exhibition - Design Museum Everywhere

Design Museum Everywhere
@reneestephen @masto @re_chief @carnage4life this is really cool, thanks for sharing this source. I work at a children's hospital and we need to re-imagine our pictorial communication like woah.
Mismatch

How inclusive methods can build elegant design solutions that work for all.Sometimes designed objects reject their users: a computer mouse that doesn't work ...

MIT Press
@carnage4life this is a great illustration! Whoever made this, here's my deepest appreciation 💓.
@carnage4life Chart showing four kinds of disability. Touch: permanent (one arm), temporary (arm injury), situational (new parent holding baby). See: permanant (blind), temporary (cataract), situational (distracted driver). Hear: permanent (deaf), temporary (ear infection), situational (bartender). Speak: permanent (non-verbal), temporary (laryngitis), situational (heavy accent). #AltTextForYou
@soaproot @carnage4life Slight irony on the lack of alt text for an image about disabilities.
@carnage4life I was first introduced to this concept by youtu.be/fBz5M3CbhYw "100% of us will have a temporary disability at some point in our life" It was transformative for me.
Droidcon NYC 2016 - Keynote: Android is for Everyone

YouTube

@carnage4life I'd boost this, but it appears that the philosophy doesn't extend to alt text...

[Screenreader user] [Terminal-based client] [Low bandwidth internet connection]

@carnage4life one thing I sort of miss that seemed to die out in the 2010s is describing non-disabled people as 'temporarily able bodied', on the grounds that if we live long enough we will all become disabled, so disabled people are not some sort of 'other' group.
@AnnaCarlaKahn @carnage4life unless they meet with an unfortunate accident or overdo booze/drugs, everyone gets old one day (this is also why Microsoft remains fairly profitable, as for all their faults they do make their software easy enough for older folk to use who might have eyesight and hearing issues and need the accessibility features)
@carnage4life love the illustration as it clearly displays the true meaning behind why one should be making products and services as accessible as possible. BUT not so keen on the “heavy accent” choice, why not go with a person in a quiet section somewhere like a library or similar instead?
@carnage4life Strong agree. As someone without permanent disabilities I never really cared about accessibility. But Microsoft's approach of showing how it can help everyone really changed my mind.

@jpobst When I broke a leg I thought back to Kat Holmes's originating talk on this: her philosophy is that humans are at most temporarily abled. At some point for some period of time almost all of us require some sort of accommodation, and we should build the world we want to live in then (extrinsic reasons aside, it's the right thing to do.)

@carnage4life

@carnage4life when I first learned of pregnancy as a temporary disability I was taken aback, but after thinking about it, decided that was actually a reasonable description and lots more things should be described that way!

*Pregnancy should still have its own category of leave with pay though, and in that context lumping it with disability was a problem.

**Pregnancy can come with various different types of temporary disabilities and is not in itself a disability.

@carnage4life Who is the badass in the bottom right corner?
@carnage4life "Heavy accent" is Swedish Chef before job retraining.
@carnage4life This is really cool. Any idea if there's a non-branded version/equivalent?
@carnage4life The Viking is perfect. I would have also accepted Conan.

@carnage4life

The irony of posting this without Alt-Text...

@carnage4life (talking about accessibility: captioning your images makes them more accessible)
@carnage4life any time someone posts accessibility stuff, I get the urge to go on a rant about how amazing GOV.UK is and the team behind it are excellent at building a user-centered service; but really, it is the gold standard, and resources like the Design System, Service Standard, etc. should be used by anyone trying to make inclusive websites. 👀
@carnage4life One person you can probably thank for this is Molly Holzschlag. She has dedicated decades to web standards and accessibility and did this tirelessly when she was with them.

@carnage4life

Talking about accessibility, let me please ask you to add an image description whenever you add an image to a post.

It its current state your post is not #inclusive: People using a #ScreenReader hear only one word:

"image"

They have no chance to know what's on the image.

@carnage4life #ALTforYou a table with graphic depictions of handicaps. Horizontally, it has permanent, temporary and situational. Vertically, it has touch, see, hear, speak. At each intersection is a drawing of a person with a handicap belonging at that intersection and a descriptive word below.

Touch, permanent: one arm.
Touch, temporary: arm injury.
Touch, situational: new parent (depicting a person holding a baby in one arm).
See, permanent: blind.
See, temporary: cataract.
See, situational: distracted driver.
Hear, permanent: deaf.
Hear, temporary: ear infection.
Hear, situational: bartender.
Speak, permanent: non-verbal.
Speak, temporary: laryngitis.
Speak, situational: heavy accent.

@carnage4life #alt4you

Table heading: Inclusive: A Microsoft Design Toolkit.
Columns: permanent, temporary, situational.
Rows: touch, see, hear, speak.

Table content:
Touch: one arm, arm injury, new parent holding baby.
See: blind, cataract, distracted driver.
Hear: Deaf, ear infection, bartender.
Speak: Non-verbal, laryngitis, heavy accent.

@carnage4life This is a really useful infographic, thank you for posting it. I'm not happy that people are dunking on you for no alt text, especially given how difficult this was to describe. That's what the #alt4me hashtag is for.

Here are a blind user's thoughts on how a hardline stance on image description is ableist in itself. https://mspsocial.net/@bright_helpings/108219848954173037

Old Erik 👿 (@[email protected])

I'm seeing a lot of proclamations that there should be no exceptions to describing your images or that there's no reason to interact with any that aren't described. I know these mean well, but they are themselves ableist. Disabled people know that access needs can clash. I benefit from described images, but I know some people struggle to write them because of their own disabilities. And that's okay! The culture of image descriptions is great here but it should never be absolutist.

MSP Social.net
@yingtai @carnage4life It's not "dunking on" - it's requests in most cases and it's not actually that hard to describe images, it just takes a little more time and effort but it means the difference in "seeing" something for someone with less sight or not. One person's opinion doesn't mean everyone shouldn't try to make an effort especially about an infograph that is definitely relevant to this topic.
@carnage4life Yes. The gitdamn curbstone effect is a thing!
@carnage4life
Oh, this is great! Thank you for sharing! :-)
@WiseWoman

@carnage4life temporary disability is thought technology that we should all embrace.

A couple of examples:

1. I look 100% able-bodied, but I messed up my knees learning to run in early January, to the point where it hurt to walk, and the “priority” seating on public transit was a blessing.

2. My brother had an angle grinder accident several years ago and was wheelchair-bound for a time. He discovered pretty quick just how wide spaces need to be to manoeuvre a wheelchair, and just how hard it is to go up a steep ramp.

#accessibility #TemporaryDisability

@johnbeales @carnage4life It should also give you a perspective on how societal restrictions and design limitations either allow or disallow disabled people, regardless of how temporary the disability, from fully participating in life.

@carnage4life this looks like good information on how disabilities can come and go.

But having an heavy accent in one type of language probably doesn't go away that easily? Also how is this person looking? Which accents are deemed difficult and whose aren't?

@carnage4life @thierna I guess that's why it's situational, having a difficult accent depends on who you're talking to. But in the context of software I agree it doesn't make much sense, the speech recognizer either understands you or it doesn't, it won't change depending on situation.
The Woman Who Rescued Patrick Mahomes’s Season — The Wall Street Journal

Chiefs assistant athletic trainer Julie Frymyer led the star quarterback’s rehab from an ankle injury. His rapid improvement is why Kansas City is going to the Super Bowl

@carnage4life Wondering whether there's recognition of folks with limited range of motion and hand-eye coordination? These too can be permanent (neck injury), temporary (recovering from surgery), or situational (multiple UX). This feels ageist: newer designs are harder to manipulate. I can't use an iPhone, for example, and increasingly can't use MacOS. But I can easily use Linux and Windows, both of which remain with older UX paradigms.
@carnage4life can relate soo much with the new parent. It shows which app you can use with only a single hand.

@carnage4life

Nice to hear about having a good philosophy. Do you also know where it gets lost on the way into MS products?
Because from the feedback of older people I support, there’s one big problem. People get used to not so great UIs an accessibility, but as they often do not grasp generel
concepts behind the UI, every change is a pain to them.
The constant change comes from us devs/admins to keep our job in interesting. But I think we are not doing our customers a favour.

@carnage4life @gstml would you mind to insert an image alt text please? It’s, you know… for inclusivity!

Ps: you don’t need to delete it, you can simply edit your toot.
#accessibility #disability

@carnage4life very rad that those with heavy accents get to wield a sword and shield imho
@carnage4life Is the Not the point you or Microsoft is making, and obviously less important, but is the heavy accent person a Viking with a sword and shield?
@carnage4life amazingly I was searching for this infographic yesterday and couldn’t find it, thanks so much for re-upping it. (in my case, was looking for some supporting material to my general claim that proposed accommodations for non-native English speakers should be applied consistently for everyone, because there are other reasons people might want e.g. subtitles or the ability to use machine translation.)
@carnage4life @_mcbride That reminds me, it's weird when developers and designers spend days arguing about wording of some UI text in English, and then hand it off to a single person to translate it to another language...

@carnage4life
#Alt4You
A table on disability from "Inclusive: A Microsoft Design Toolkit"

There are three columns (left to right): Permanent, Temporary, Situational.

There are 4 rows for those 3 columns:
Touch: One arm, Arm injury, New Parent
See: Blind, Cataract, Distracted Driver
Hear: Deaf, Ear infection, Bartender
Speak: Non-verbal, Laryngitis, Heavy Accent