[Chloe Rodriguez]: Midterm Portfolio – #1 Alt Text Comic

The Project

Project Description 

Your text here

Documentation 

Then I moved onto the third photo which was probably the easiest. There is not much going on in the photo and unlike the second photo, there is also no motion. Again, I wasn’t sure if the description is the best but it accurately describes what the photo is of.

I was still struggling with the first photo so I decided to fill the alt-text with whatever my brain immediately conjured up. I did not like what I wrote and I did not think it was an accurate representation of the photo but I knew that I could always go back and change it. So I decided to leave it as is and work on the captions for each photo.

When looking at the photos and trying to come up with a narrative, I really liked the idea of feeding the birds half my breakfast. It felt especially silly to me because I knew that the reason there is only half a sandwich in the third photo is because I took a bite and didn’t want a half eaten bagel in my photo. I tied the first photo into the narrative by being the day greeting me on my way out to work though I am pretty sure I took that photo before class. In thinking of how to make the alt-text and captions interact, I really struggled. I think the best I got was on the third panel where the caption simply refers to the photo as breakfast but the alt-text specifies that it is a bagel sandwich. Even then, that’s not really an interaction as much as it is dramatic screen reader irony. On the template, I couldn’t figure out how to edit the text boxes to fit all the text without decreasing the font size so I left it as is 

Now it was time to go back and fix the alt-text on the first photo in the comic strip. I felt as though the need to mention the firehouse was unnecessary so I cut that part out. I wanted to add a bit about what the sky/weather looked like and settled on a description with both those changes.

Here is the final comic strip! 

Reflection Questions

I am not sure about a “theme” but I think a motif that underscores the work is this idea of irony or the audience knowing more than what is being showed to the people within the work. The use of screen readers really emphasizes this motif since only those who use screen readers are able to fully interact with the narrative and get all the details while those not using screen readers are just receiving the visible aspects. I think the imagery of written text is shown only through the use of screen readers which is very well suited for this project. However, at the same time, the use of alt-text (at least in my case) possibly doesn’t do the images justice so that could always be improved. I don’t believe that people who do not use screen readers are entirely excluded from this narrative but I suppose they are excluded from the narrative in its totality. I think if I were to include those who do not use screen readers maybe I would make alt-text visible on the comic strip itself outside of the caption. 

Additional Modality (if applicable) 

What modality did you apply? 

I decided to do an audio description of the alt text comic. Once the comic became time based, I decided it was worth it to add captions.

How did you decide on this modality?

Honestly, this felt like it would be the easiest to do within the time frame that I have to do the project. I decided to add captions because it felt like they were necessary now that the comic strip was time based.

What does the beholder gain from this additional modality? Why? 

I think the alt-text comic strip on its own really only works for individuals who use screen readers, using audio description makes those parts of the narrative accessible to those who do not rely on screen readers. Additionally, the captions work for individuals who cannot hear the audio description. These modalities allow for that to happen

Does the beholder lose anything from this modality? What? 

I think maybe the beholder might be a bit overwhelmed by the different modalities and everything going on at once but I am not sure if that is a loss of anything. 

Show documentation of this modality, and describe it if it’s not accessible on a screen (ie, if it’s tactile if it’s a scent) 

When I started I knew I wanted to do a audio description of the comic but I wasn’t necessarily sure how to go about it. I looked back on the comic strip we had looked at earlier in the course and realized that I needed to create some sort of montage of each comic panel with the caption attached. I do not have documentation of this since I did it on my phone (I love being able to make my work mobile because then I can work on it anywhere!) but I was able to add the captions of the panels into the photos. 

I wrote an audio description of the images in the comic strip which was different from the alt text. This is mostly because I know that alt text and description are not the same thing and the alt text was not good enough in providing a detailed description for individuals who are blind/low vision. I recorded this literally a million times because it just wasn’t sounding correct and I kept messing up on some of the words.

Once I finally got a recording that I liked, I imported that into premiere. I did the transcript of the audio description and added it as captions to the video; there wasn’t much to change here since it did a pretty good job (I like to think it is because I enunciate my words and speak clearly). However, I realized that I needed to describe the captions as well since they were now part of the image. I recorded the captions being read out loud. I did this in one take and didn’t go back and listen to it once I had finished recording it partially because I felt like I was already in my head about the recordings and because I didn’t have much time. 

I inserted these clips into the video and that was pretty much it.