Accessibility Policy

INTRODUCTION

Welcome! The 2021 Nebula Award Conference Online is designed to be accessible for all members. This includes:

  • Live closed captioning for all panels, talks, and the Awards ceremony.
  • Simultaneous AI Spanish translation (AI = artificial intelligence. It’s the FUTURE!!).
  • Text reader-friendly website.
  • Alt-text for images.
  • Audio-only engagement.
  • Low-sensory virtual rooms.
  • Recordings of panels and presentations, with closed-captioning, for review at the participant’s leisure.
  • Social opportunities that do not require cameras, microphones, or speakers.

In this document, we cover:

This is an evolving document meant to reflect the needs and questions from the community. 

TURNING CAPTIONS ON AND OFF ON THE EVENTS WEBSITE AND YOUTUBE

If you are watching the panels or awards through the Nebula Events website, there will be an embedded widget below the video that can be expanded or collapsed.

Screencap of the closed captioning widget with the expand/collapse button circled in red on the right.

When using YouTube for the awards ceremony, there should be a icon in the lower right corner of the video panel that says “CC”.

Here’s a video on the exact location and how to change the subtitle language:

ADJUSTING FONT SIZE OF CAPTIONS

If using the event site to watch panels and the awards ceremony, Recapd has a widget embedded into the website. On the widget, users can:

  • Resize the captioning window.
  • Resize the font.
  • Open and close the widget in a separate tab.
  • Access the widget on a mobile device.

A quick guide on how to do this with pictures can be found here: https://www.recapd.com/features/live-event-captions#embeddable_widget

ADDING ALT-TEXT FOR PHOTOS

Adding alt-text for images posted on Twitter and websites help low-visibility users and/or users with sensory processing issues with photos online. This is also helpful when a tweet or website does not load properly.

There are two ways to do this on Twitter. When tweeting from a Twitter’s website:

  1. Create new tweet and add the picture.
  2. Click “Add description” from the below the picture.
  3. Enter description text and hit “Save”.
  4. Publish tweet.
Twitter's website with an enlarged tweet with a photo of Earth. "Add Description" is circled in red with a red arrow pointing to it.

When using Twitter’s mobile app:

  1. Create new tweet and add picture.
  2. Tap “+ALT” on the bottom right corner of the picture.
  3. Add description text and hit “Save”.
  4. Publish tweet.
Twitter's mobile app with a tweet with a picture of a brunch. "+Alt" button on the bottom right circled in red with a red arrow pointing to it.

Some good practices for writing good alt text:

  • Be short and specific.
  • Don’t include “Image of” or “Picture of”.
  • Don’t repeat yourself.
  • Include any text that is in the image, i.e., writing on T-shirts or banners.

At the bottom of this article there are some examples of good and bad alt texts.

https://supercooldesign.co.uk/blog/how-to-write-good-alt-text

HOW TO ACCESS PANELS AFTER THE CONFERENCE

Because of the nature of virtual cons, we realize that not all members will be able to attend all the panels because of health, family demands, time zones, etc. However, the panels will be recorded and accessible to all members through April 2022. Simply return to this events.sfwa.org website and find the panel you want in the archive to view.

QUIET/LOW SENSORY VIRTUAL ROOMS

The Hopkinson Suite features a low-sensory room, requiring that mics and cameras be turned off to interact.  

CONCLUSION

If you have accessibility questions or concerns at any point during the conference, please reach out to Aliza Greenblatt (DM on Twitter at @AtGreenblatt) or email the Events Team (events@sfwa.org).

Thank you!

We welcome input from the community, please let our accessibility coordinator, Aliza Greenblatt, know about ways to make the conference as accessible as possible. 

Please fill out this form.

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