This morning has been an opportunity to combine two of my interests–reading and accessibility. Several years ago I read the first of the Jonathan Quinn series from author Brett Battles and have come to enjoy each new book. The books are fast-paced action-packed adventures that have been set in a range of interesting destinations.
I’m also intrigued by how authors make it in the new world of publishing, Amazon and just the full range of how the book world has evolved. Brett Battles has been interesting to follow on that front also.
In full transparency, I received an advanced copy of the most recent book in the Quinn series with only the ask that if possible I post a review once the book came out and that I help spread the word about the book. Well, the book came out today so I was going to share a post from the author someplace in social media.
Now we get to accessibility. Before going there though, I’ll say that if you enjoy thrillers, give The Fractured a read.
I went to Facebook to copy a link to the author page for Brett Battles and for whatever reason this is the first text I ended up reading:
Icon of invite friends to like the lage
This is alt text on a graphic on the page. Part of the HTML as you would expect reads:
alt=Icon of invite friends to like the lage
Please, if you are creating alternative text, proofread it just as closely as you do other text or give it the same attention you do to images. This sort of experience happens more than you would think. I’m by no means perfect and I’m sure I myself can find many issues in my own writing, not to mention what others could point out. But this means every page on Facebook that uses this like the page icon, is giving users who rely on alt text this “like the lage” text.
Typically I’d probably not mention the alt text issue publicly but instead find the Facebook accessibility contacts and send them a note. I just found it ironic that I went to share details on a book and this was the first text I ended up reading. Now I’m off to join Jonathan Quinn and the rest of the gang and finish The Fractured. Join me in the adventure.
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