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10/14/2022 - embrace accessibility
Mood: Disappointed.
Here's something that evades my understanding. So I'm still pretty new to Gemini in general, I haven't seen the extent of the types of content on here, but I've noticed a few weird things in certain capsules. Occasionally I see a capsule where they are using these crazy unicode symbols all over the place. Usually for decoration or something. Alternatively, I'll see people using the "preformatted text" entries (y'know, with the backticks) to provide information in a decorative format.
If you aren't aware, screen readers are a main tool for people who are visually impaired to actually understand what's on screen. However, a screen reader doesn't always read non-words very well. As an example, why don't you throw my ASCII skeleton on the front page into a text-to-speech tool and see how that sounds? I'll save you the trouble - it's a pain.
I hate to be that guy, but it's just bad for accessibility purposes. Right? I mean, use Gemini for whatever you want, but a cool thing about it is how the documents are structured. Either you're on here to share files because of its hierarchical structure (similar to Gopher), or you're here to share a bunch of text. At least now, the modern web is so bogged down in sparkles and bling that there is a dearth of written content. Not to mention most social media being more image-focused and having character limits for posts. Sometimes, people are gonna sacrifice accessibility for a cool layout, which is a shame. Now I can't really blame people, because I love crazy designs and all, but I feel like Gemini would be a good alternative for those who just want text-based content. And yet... here we are.
Like I said, you shouldn't be putting random unicode symbols and whatnot throughout your capsule for decoration. If you really want something to decorate your page (and who could blame you), then encase it in backticks and write a little alt text for posterity. All you're doing is providing a person with a screen reader the most annoying experience on earth.
As for the "main text in preformatted zones" issue... well, jeez. I just don't understand why you'd do that. This feature is great for adding in your decorations, not delivering information. For example, I've seen tables made using the preformatted text and, well, at that point, you need to reformat your information in a way that's readable for everyone. Just don't bother with tables at all if you're going to be distributing information over this protocol.
Now... am I much better? No, not really. I use emojis throughout my capsule design for cuteness purposes. I am literally the guy I am complaining about. However, I at least try to use them sparsely. Even then, I'm kinda thinking about removing them for this reason. Perhaps it removes the "effect", but not everyone is using Lagrange, and not everyone wants to hear them read aloud.
Obviously this isn't a big problem or anything. As I said, I've only seen this on a few different capsules. But that's a few capsules (and probably many more) that will not be visited by the visually impaired because of how they were formatted.
And if you don't think this is something to consider, then... nothing I say will convince you. I'm of the belief that vision-impaired people should be able to read things as cleanly as the rest of us do. If the web will be hostile to them with all the random symbols and image-heavy design, then maybe we should make a text-based protocol - designed as an alternative to the WWW - friendlier for them.