post 126

[00:00:00] Jessica:

Jess, here. I'm going to show you a 2022 update of Instagram stories, using the Android TalkBack function. So right now we're just on my screen recording of my phone. I have a background wallpaper illustration of Jar Jar Binks as Sailor Moon from Tumblr.

Sugandha actually was chatting with me and we were talking about the inaccessibility of Instagram stories. So let's do it. I'm going to go into my window pane here, because I already put in TalkBack, so it's quicker.

It's under the accessibility settings in your Android phone. If you have Mac, you can use VoiceOver. We're going to turn this on, and then I'm going to stop talking when it starts to read out the audio. So that you get the full effect of how navigating the phone with a screen reader like this would work.

[00:00:51] TalkBack:

TalkBack on. TalkBack. Navigate up, button. Instagram one of two and list– instagram home feed. JTKnoxRoxs updated their story 23 hours ago. Instagram photo by Jen White Johnson on October 12th, 2022. May be an image of one person and bottle. Text sticker says medium skin tone. Medium skin tone, medium skin tone, medium skin tone.

[00:01:16] Jessica:

So that's just using Instagram's auto alt text, to assume what the story's going to be. Not actually using whatever we write. I'm just using JTKnoxRoxs because they're the first story, up here. Just to reiterate, this is not Jen not being accessible, this is Instagram's formats.

But they did update, in the sense that it does read out the entire image now, and you can actually go through the navigation. When I swipe sideways:

[00:01:44] TalkBack:

Previous story. Next story. Double tap to activate. Double tap and hold to view the next user story.

[00:01:52] Jessica:

It actually might read out okay.

[00:01:54] TalkBack:

JezzChung updated their story 20 hours ago with a photo. Story one of 16. Out of list. Reels tray container.

May be an image of one person and text that says: Felt blobby again. So came back to kay at amine therapy. Every time I get the help I need, I'm proud of myself. Text sticker says: Felt blobby again so I came back to kay at amine therapy. Mending Heart. Every time I get the help I need, I am proud of myself.

[00:02:19] Jessica:

So there's no way right now on Instagram, to edit the alt text on our stories for images, so it might not get the text right. It is important to write clear text and to write big sizes. JezzChung did a great job of that, and so did JTKnoxRoxs. They did great. Also follow both of these people cuz they rock.

Now we're gonna go back and show you one of my stories with audio. Because you know what, it might mess up now. So let's see what happens.

[00:02:42] Overlapping Audio:

TalkBack: Profile. Oddi dot Jessica. Jessica Oddi.  Jessica: I created this list to – TalkBack: Instagram video – Jessica: connect with other disabled graphic designers in the industry that –  TalkBack: double tap to play or pause.

[00:02:50] Jessica:

I started back in the day with my audio way too soon. I actually created a video to do this. So the alt text just says "Video. Click to pause. Click to play."

Later on I started to implement about a one second gap. So that the person can scroll through the top navigation, before they actually get to me reading out.

I'm curious from my fellow disabled users here. Which one do you prefer? Would you rather auto generated alt text that messes up? Or would you prefer to create our own audio and captions?

Personally, I would like Instagram to allow people to edit the alt text of the images they create in their stories. And that would make stories fully accessible.

As of right now, they did do improvements in the navigation, and how it's used. But again, this is just with TalkBack. This isn't with other screen reading devices that are probably more widely used in the community.

Let me know what you think. And I hope you found this helpful.