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HomeLifeMake Facebook and Instagram posts accessible as connect together online

Make Facebook and Instagram posts accessible as connect together online

As Thailand continues to overcome the third wave of COVID-19 and as we honor Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Facebook Thailand is presenting its Thai digital accessibility and inclusion tips to connect all communities with each other, including those with disabilities. 

According to the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities’ June 2020 census report, there are over two million people with disabilities registered in Thailand – almost 3 in every 100 – with over one million facing issues with mobility, and hundreds of thousands of Thais living with hearing, visual or cognitive impairments. 

Facebook’s mission is to bring the world closer together — and that includes people with disabilities; access is opportunity and when everyone is connected, we all benefit. More than 160,000 Thais are part of over 770 Facebook groups related to experience sharing, volunteering, making donations, providing moral support, and job seeking for people with disabilities.

As our goal is to build products to be inclusive of people with varying abilities, Facebook continues to invest in accessibility, sharing work publicly so others can learn from it, advancing accessibility training in higher education, and contributing to web standards that help make the internet accessible, whether closed-caption features including real-time captioning in Facebook Live broadcasts or its Automatic Alt Text (AAT) feature which leverages artificial intelligence to automatically generate descriptions for people using screen readers – be it text or detailed image descriptions. In the coming month, we are rolling out auto-captioning on videos in groups in local languages including Thai to provide more accessibility to our community. 

Max Simpson, founder of Steps with Theera – a Bangkok-based vocational center for teenagers and young people with special education needs, equally believes that everyone – regardless of their differences – should be able to access a dignified, fulfilling life. “It is important that there is a place, particularly in the digital era, where everyone is accepted for who they are. Creating a community of acceptance online that embraces difference and individuality allows all of us to be empowered and confident about ourselves, while connecting together during this difficult period.”

As Thais continue to stay safe at home and connect with each other online, it is important we all consider people with disabilities when posting on Facebook or Instagram. Here is Facebook’s guide to make sure your posts are accessible for everyone to understand.

Simple Language
Whenever possible, use simple language and shorter sentences. Longer sentences can be harder to follow and understand. Use sentence case instead of all capital letters to make it easier for people with cognitive and learning disabilities to read.

Hashtags
Capitalize the first letter of each word when you use hashtags. For example, use #BestFriendForever instead of #bestfriendforever. This is called CamelCase – it’s easier to read and enables screen readers used by people who are blind and visually impaired, to pronounce hashtags properly.

Emojis
Avoid creating emoticons using text (such as  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). These are hard for many people to read or understand, and screen readers for the blind have difficulty describing their meaning. Instead use emojis, the small pictures used to convey emotions and ideas, such as ?  ?  ?. Each emoji has a matching text description that is spoken by screen readers for the blind. For example, this emoji,  ?? is spoken as “thumbs up.”

Color
Text is harder to read when it appears on top of photographs and complex images, so place text over a solid, high-contrast background and increase the contrast between text and its background. 

Photos
Add brief text descriptions for photos you share, known as alt text. Alt text is spoken by screen readers to describe images to the blind and visually impaired. Keep them short but descriptive like “walking through the park with my new puppy.” You can also just add an image description to the caption for each photo that you post – the simpler it is, the better. To use alt text, choose to edit your photo on Facebook or Instagram through the three dot menu during your upload or after and choose ‘change/edit alt text’ to add image description. 

Animated GIFs
Strong visual patterns including strobing, flickering, blinking, and flashing can make it extremely difficult or even impossible for people with cognitive or learning disabilities to focus and read your post. These visuals can even cause seizures for some people. To avoid this, make sure your GIFs flash no more than three times per second and run for less than 5 seconds.

Audio
Include a text transcript with your audio recordings. In addition to people with hearing loss, transcripts are useful to people who are listening to audio recordings in a noisy environment or when they need to keep quiet and may not have headphones handy. A good transcript includes descriptions of sound effects and other noises, and references who is speaking.

Video
Include captions or a transcript with your videos. Without them, your video will exclude people who are deaf or hard of hearing. They’re also useful for people who are watching your videos in a noisy environment, quiet spaces, or when they may not have headphones.

Transcripts are easy to create. They are just a plain text version of what is being spoken in the audio recording. It is also helpful to include descriptions of sound effects and other noises, and reference who is speaking.

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