Re: Requesting Initial Feedback on "Alt-Text on Demand" for Academic Articles

The approach you describe sounds good for previously published *archived*
papers.

However, if the solution works so well, why can't it also be part of the
publishing process for the original papers acceptance *before* it is
accepted to be published?  There are lots and lots of requirements for a
paper to be published, so to include a requirement that the images, charts
and graphs be described is reasonable (or it doesn't get published just
like any other publishing requirement).  Further, if you are including the
tools for the author to check and correct their paper *before* it is
accepted seems to me to be a better, slightly more preventative approach.

There are situations where the original authors may not know how to or may
even describe the images, charts and graphs incorrectly, so having an
accessibility subject matter expert available on-demand should also be
required as part of the publishing platform / approach.
___________
Regards,
Phill Jenkins
Check out the new system for requesting an IBM product Accessibility
Conformance Report VPAT® at  able.ibm.com/request
pjenkins@us.ibm.com
Accessibility Executive
IBM Accessibility
linkedin.com/in/philljenkins/
www.ibm.com/able
twitter.com/IBMAccess
ageandability.com




From: Lorenzo Milani <Lorenzo.Milani@sagepub.co.uk>
To: "w3c-wai-ig@w3.org" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Date: 09/20/2019 08:05 AM
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Requesting Initial Feedback on "Alt-Text on Demand"
            for Academic  Articles



Hello everybody,

I am a Product Associate for the User Experience Team at SAGE Publishing,
reaching out for ideas and feedback on an accessibility initiative for
academic and scholarly articles found on online journals.

As thousands of journal articles are commissioned and published every year
from a variety different sources, it is often very hard to ensure that the
authors provide alt-text for any images, tables and graphs they choose to
include.

If remediating every image on every article on our platform is not viable
or generally useful we still want to provide a solution for delivering fast
alternative text. This would be an “alt-text on demand” solution where
readers would request alt-text for an article or specific image. We would
then add the relevant alt-text and inform the reader when it would be
available. The long-term aim is to automate this workflow to deliver the
alt-text as quickly as possible, but the text itself would still be created
by a human to ensure quality and consistency.

The alt-text request could potentially take different forms:

      1.      A mail-to hidden link at the top of an article page, probably
      next to the skip link
      2.      A link to an accessibility page with a simple form to fill
      out
      3.      A simple form on the article page itself
      4.      For every image missing meaningful alt text, including
      alt-text that reads, “to request alt text e-mail
      exampleaddress@example.com “

These are just initial ideas and if you have any feedback, insights or
comments these would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help,
Lorenzo Milani
Product Associate, User Experience Team
SAGE Publishing
1 & 2, Broadgate
London, EC2M 2QS
UK