I don’t understand why the world isn’t made to be more accessible. Making spaces easy to navigate for people with physical disabilities often if not always makes things easier for other people too. Having a ramp instead of stairs makes it easier for wheel chair users, but also for strollers, suitcases, bikes, etc. A wider doorway makes it easier to get anything in and out without damaging what you’re moving or the building. Elevators are handy for anyone, maybe you have a permanent disability, maybe you broke a leg or sprained an ankle, maybe you’re carrying something heavy, or you have small children who tire easily, or the elderly as well. Removing sharp drops on sidewalks is great too, I’m sure the learner driver who hit the curb will be thankful their car went up it instead of getting smashed, or the little kid who is scared of falling will thank you for that too. I can’t think of any general accessibility features that cause problems for the people who don’t need them aside from the fact that some of them are more costly to install, which, in public spaces is well worth the benefit.
Take a Step back from Takers
Storytime
I grew up surrounded by phenomenal women who were providers, leaders, and constant sources of inspiration. From the earliest moments of family life, I witnessed women serving, guiding, and holding households together. For generations they were expected to sit in the passenger seat; now they’re driving their own cars and charting their own direction. Nurses. Teachers. Caregivers.…
open letter to @staff, @changes,
I use the reblogs to find image descriptions and I am horrified that you would make it so difficult to browse through other’s replies.
You may think that this change has more positives (literally what) then negatives, but the disabled community is not only larger and (and a more profitable audience) than you would guess, but things that help disabled people also help their community through the curb-cut effect.
Image descriptions help those with low vision, slow internet, trouble processing visually, and on and on.
I am not ok with this update and will continue protesting for a time, but if changes are not made to make reblogs usable again, I will not hesitate to leave this platform.
There are so many things you could do differently that don’t compromise the usability of the website. Here are a few:
- make only comments post-specific
- make only likes post-specific
- make the reblog graph static to make it easy to follow reblog chains
- put the stats on a separate tab that people could open to see the entire stats and broken down stats
Please listen to feedback and consider tumblr’s userbase. I hope you make good decisions.
Oh hey you know what kinda also sucks is that now those (genuinely!!!) helpful blogs that go and add image descriptions onto posts are either going to have to content with either doing less of a genuine service or with assholes getting mad at them for “sniping” or something
(not saying they are I want to be clear, and I do recognize that people can learn to add image descriptions and alt text themselves but do not start spouting a piss on the poor type take when that’s not what the hellfuck I said or am contesting)
now more then ever if you care at all about accessibility for your peers who are blind/visually impaired you should be adding image descriptions in your original post.
people who need image descriptions will no longer be able to search for them in the reblogs (disclaimer, I am on mobile on an older version of the app so I have not seen how this update works myself but this is what I’m seeing people saying about how notes are working.) also, many/most of us who add image descriptions also search the notes before reblogging something to see if there is already an accessible version.
if you struggle to write image descriptions for your posts, there is a discord server full of people willing to help or write one for you.
i didn’t even think about how the new reblog and note system will be detrimental to blogs who add image descriptions to peoples posts. now people are going to block accessibility blogs because adding an image description will “take all the notes”
@staff did anyone consider how much harder the changes to the chain are going to make finding image descriptions?
so many bloggers have put hours upon hours into making this website more accessible by writing image descriptions in reblog chains. now if we do we’re taking engagement away from the original posters - who sometimes even see our IDs and add them to their own posts. that’s gone now.
completely disappointed.
Something else I noticed about the new tumblr update is that now if I add an image description in a reblog to someone’s post, I will be taking notes away from them. By attempting to make a post accessible I will be taking notes away from the original poster. Like. I don’t want to do that! Of course I want the site to be more accessible but I don’t want it to be at the expense of other people!
Hey, so this update also causes accessibility issues.
Often, when people have undescribed media in their posts, people will reblog with a description in a comment and ask the OP to edit the description into their post. Great, right?
Except if the OP won’t see anything not reblogged from the original post, there is no chance they’ll be able to edit the description in.
And if the new etiquette becomes to avoid adding commentary in reblogs, describers may come under fire for accessibility.
I genuinely hate this update so much.
Philadelphia Web Consultant Vance Bell Publishes Comprehensive Guide to IRS Tax Credit for Website Accessibility Costs
Updated Resource Helps Small Businesses Save Up to $5,000 Annually on Digital Accessibility Compliance Through the Disabled Access Credit (Form 8826)
PHILADELPHIA, PA — Vance Bell, a Philadelphia-based web design consultant and accessibility specialist with more than 25 years of experience, has published an expanded guide detailing how small businesses can use the IRS Disabled Access Credit to offset the cost of making their websites accessible to people with disabilities.
The guide, published at vancebell.com, walks business owners through the full scope of the Disabled Access Credit — a federal tax credit worth up to $5,000 per year — and explains how website accessibility expenses such as audits, remediation, developer training, captioning services, and accessibility monitoring tools can qualify as eligible expenditures under IRS Form 8826.
“Most small business owners I talk to have no idea this credit exists,” said Bell. “They assume making their website accessible is purely a cost center. In reality, the IRS will cover up to half of those expenses, and you can claim it every year.”
The guide covers the full scope of the Disabled Access Credit in practical detail, including:
- What the credit is, who qualifies, and how to calculate the savings — with a worked example showing how a $5,000 accessibility project yields a $2,375 credit
- A step-by-step walkthrough of IRS Form 8826, including an embedded video explanation by a Certified Financial Planner
- A detailed list of eligible website accessibility expenses, from audits and remediation to captioning services, developer training, and ongoing monitoring tools
- How SaaS companies and software product developers may apply the credit to product accessibility costs under WCAG 2.2 and Section 508
- The IRS “denial of double benefit” rule and how to properly allocate expenses between the credit and standard business deductions
- How unused credit amounts can be carried forward for up to 20 years through the General Business Credit (Form 3800) — ensuring small businesses with variable income don’t lose the benefit
- A caution on accessibility overlay widgets, which have faced criticism from the accessibility community and legal challenges, and why businesses should invest in validated, measurable improvements instead
- The business case for accessibility, including data on the 75 million U.S. adults with disabilities, over 8,800 ADA website lawsuits filed in 2024, and research showing inaccessible sites cost retailers billions in lost sales
- Best practices for documenting expenditures to support the credit claim
Bell’s guide also makes the broader business case for website accessibility, citing CDC data showing that approximately 28.7% of U.S. adults have some type of disability, and noting that federal ADA website accessibility lawsuits exceeded 8,800 in 2024 — with Pennsylvania among the top states for filings.
“Accessibility isn’t just a compliance checkbox,” said Bell. “It expands your customer base, reduces legal risk, and improves your SEO. The tax credit just makes the decision easier.”
The full article, including a video walkthrough of Form 8826, calculation examples, and a complete list of eligible expenses, is available at: https://vancebell.com/blog/reduce-your-web-accessibility-costs-through-an-irs-tax-credit-disabled-access-credit-form-8826/
Business owners with questions about website accessibility, WCAG compliance, or VPAT assessments can contact Bell directly through his website.
Contact: Vance Bell
Website: vancebell.com
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Services: Web Accessibility & WCAG Compliance, Web Design, VPAT Assessments, Online Marketing
So I just watched live as a long-ass reblog chain from 2018 lost ALL the replies, reblogs and likes to all posts in the chain except the original.
Good job @tumblr @staff - you’re retroactively breaking the notes on old posts, exactly what you said you wouldn’t 👏
Also I find the update visually confusing, since it’s now harder to distinguish where one post ends and another begins. (You used to be able to tell easily since *only* the last reblog in the chain had the reply, reblog and like buttons.) And I’m only mildly visually challenged. So, a great accessibility feature too!
I’m sure it’s not too late to roll back the update?
The update to isolate chains makes it difficult to hunt down specific descriptive reblogs, in case someone is visually impaired, hearing impaired, or just has a crappy internet. Isolating the chains impedes accessibility, as we cannot always rely on users to create their own informative descriptions.
This meeting should’ve been an email
People love meetings and presentations. With any big change, there’s invariably one to many.
I don’t mind those where I am a participant engaged the conversation. Ideally someone sends out a recap with decisions and action items, or I may forget.
I hate those where it’s someone talking to the room. Those are in one ear and out the other. My time was wasted because I won’t remember anything I…
Can confirm: Touchscreen devices, even with assistive technology like screen readers, provide a terrible experience for visually impaired and other disabled folks.
I spent the last year working on accessibility for a major corporation and even though we brought things to a legally acceptable standard, it was an uphill battle and in the end, still suboptimal.
Assistive tech often transforms a 2D visual experience to a 1D linear sequence of choices, and the interface becomes tediously slow with a whole new set of multitouch swipe gestures and double taps. (Blind users often set the speaking rate for screen readers incredibly high to compensate.)
⛓️💥ℹ️National Freedom Of Information Day!👁️☺️.
Today highlights the importance of the Freedom of Information Act, which allows the public to request access to government records. It also coincides with the birthday of James Madison, who advocated for government transparency.
How do I (20F) tell my friend (21NB) that they’re making me uncomfortable without dimming their shine
For context, I have pretty bad anxiety. It’s colllided with other mental illnesses and is generally a struggle. The process for getting proper medication is taking ages, too.
So at the beginning of my very first semester (last fall), I met “Allie”, with whom I share a major. They basically popped in front of me, complimented my hair and asked to be my friend. We talked for a bit and I quickly realized that 1) they were fun and unashamedly themselves 2) we had a lot in common and 3) they were probably autistic or at least neurodivergent in some way (what can I say, game recognizes game).
Since then, we’ve mostly been chatting after or in-between classes, but I consider them my friend and they seem to really like me. They’re very extroverted, and I am less (although I’m not really shy), so they tend to talk more. Sometimes I can’t place a single word in a conversation, but I know it’s not their intention and they just don’t realize it, and besides it’s fine.
Like I said, Allie is unashamedly themselves and seem to be a rare instance of a bubbly neurodivergent person who has never been shunned or convinced to change to fit the norm, never introduced to the concept of “cringe”, which is a refreshing sight. Sometimes they’re really loud in public, and I do get uncomfortable but usually take it for exposure therapy, because well they’re not the problem and they should never think they are. When that happens, I just smile and nod.
But today, I think I hit my limit. They started to loudly sing Hazbin Hotel songs and dance around me, in the street with all the students leaving campus. Again, there’s nothing wrong with doing that, but it was just too much for me, I hate being put on the spot like this, I almost wanted to cry.
But I can’t find anything to say to them that won’t be along the lines of them being “too much”, which I really want to avoid. They’ve probably been told that already, and I don’t want them to hear it from a friend at that. People like that are extremely important and the world around them is wrong, that I know.
I want to stay friends, and above all I want them to stay themselves. But I don’t think I can handle another situation like that.
I fear that even telling them that I’m the problem would still come off as an ask to “tone down” their personality.
So how do I tell them, how do I phrase it ?
You’re way overthinking here, hon.
“Can you please stop singing? People are staring. I don’t know if I’ve told you, but I have pretty serious anxiety, and the staring is making me really uncomfortable.”
“Hey, fren. Let’s use our indoor voices out of respect for other people, okay?”
“I can tell you want to perform, and I love that for you. I’m going to go relax [under that tree over there]. Please join me after you’ve finished your song.”
“Can you please talk lower? I’m having a bad sensory day, and I need calmer voices.”
If these are things you would take personally if someone said them to you, that’s something for you to work on! These are not rude. They are not attacks. They are both reasonable and polite requests anyone should be able to make, especially to a friend.
All of this talk about Sign Language making things more accessible is good. Over 500 Indigenous nations used some form of hand talk to communicate in various situations. This is actually where American Sign Langauge came from, Plains Sign Langugage of Indigenous people.
However I would like to talk about the old stereotype you see in old hokey colonial western films about Natives.
Do you know why there’s a stereotype where Natives would hold up a hand ✋️ and say “Háu”? Which is a Lakota word for hello?
The showing or shaking of hands came about to show that one was not of tainted bloodline. Five fingers proved that one did not possess the traits of blood-lust and violence which always accompanied the descendants of six-fingered giants, or “men of renowned”. 6 fingers. Of the nephilim. Fallen angels. Cannibals. We didn’t have any biblical stories, but we do have stories of violent cannibal giants.
This is the basis of most human handshake customs, as well as saluting, where knights would lift their visor to show both their face and their hand.
interpreting at my shul specifically is on average great; it’s overwhelmingly the same interpreting team at regular services and they are themselves jewish with familiarity with hebrew and the services (one of the interpreters is fully trilingual and knows hebrew well; the other is not completely trilingual but does know the liturgy well and also the culture.)
for events outside of regular services like classes or social things, it is not always the same team though and in those cases it’s a bit more all-over-the-place.
we still do have a few favored other go-to interpreters to ask first in those cases and that pool is generally, while not all jewish themselves, folks who have been very conscientious to learn some culturally competent interpreting since they work with us regularly. if folks from that little pool of go-tos aren’t available though then they will just get Whoever Is Available, whatever freelancers people can find or whoever an agency sends, and then it can be a real crapshoot in terms of how skilled they are at managing, how much they are considerate of jewishness at all, how much they are throwing hella xtian nonsense into the interpreting 😅
asl interpreting in the united states has in general been just deeply poisoned by a specifically xtian proselytizing history. where a lot of the roots of interpreting explicitly started out as a way to make sure us poor benighted ignoramuses could still Find Jesus. and while that’s definitely not any longer why most people go into interpreting the “bring jesus to the suffering disableds” strain is still a significant minority enough to trickle into a loooot of interpreting whether or not the individual interpreter is aware of it – like what signs they learn and language they’re taught and don’t bother to examine later.
so yeah it’s definitely a Thing i have seen a lot! just thankfully folks on my shul’s access team went out of the way to try and explicitly find jewish terps so its less frequent than it might have been. if im traveling and try to request interpretation at a different shul* its often very awkward linguistically.
*already hit or miss if i can even do this. maaaany shuls ive tried to ask have effectively been like. are you a member? no? then we dgaf if you have access.
I LOVE AUDIOBOOKS I LOVE WHEN THEY ARE FREE AND EASLY ACESSABLE I LOVE ART OF THE WRITTEN BOOK FUCK YEAHH
It’s actually so embarrassing for a triple A game like Resident Evil 9 to not have an FOV slider
That’s BASIC game options. That basic accessibility
Even the silly Berry Bury Berry game has one AND points out that increasing FOV can alleviate motion sickness (hence why it’s accessibility)(it also let’s you lower the color saturation which is so cool)
And say what you want about Microsoft Game Studios, but their games often have TONS of all kinds of accessibility features (go play South Of Midnight)
There’s no excuse for this