Holden Foreman
@holden.bsky.social
Software Engineer | he/him | NOT on here, find my contact info at hs4man21.github.io/me re: my @alt-text.bsky.social bot or other projects :)
Reposted by Holden Foreman
Sorry for the bot issues over the past week. It appears to be working again. Please flag any further issues promptly to @holden.bsky.social using the contact info in his bio.
February 9, 2024 at 11:58 PM
Sorry for the bot issues over the past week. It appears to be working again. Please flag any further issues promptly to @holden.bsky.social using the contact info in his bio.
Reposted by Holden Foreman
The bot is back up and running. Thank you for your patience. Please contact @holden.bsky.social (using the contact info in his bio) with any bug reports.
Reminder: This bot is for screen reader users to use when someone neglected to add alt text to their post. Don’t use it to write your alt text.
Reminder: This bot is for screen reader users to use when someone neglected to add alt text to their post. Don’t use it to write your alt text.
This bot is temporarily down for maintenance to fix a serious bug causing it to leave hundreds of replies on posts. I will post another update after the bot is back up. As a reminder, the bot is for screen reader users. If you are authoring a post, write your own alt text instead of using the bot.
February 1, 2024 at 11:27 PM
The bot is back up and running. Thank you for your patience. Please contact @holden.bsky.social (using the contact info in his bio) with any bug reports.
Reminder: This bot is for screen reader users to use when someone neglected to add alt text to their post. Don’t use it to write your alt text.
Reminder: This bot is for screen reader users to use when someone neglected to add alt text to their post. Don’t use it to write your alt text.
Reposted by Holden Foreman
This Thursday is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) and I get to join some amazing people at Spotify and Fable for a roundtable discussion on working in accessibility as a person with a disability.
May 18th at 2PM EST. Virtual and free to register
May 18th at 2PM EST. Virtual and free to register
Experts with Fable Webinar | Disability in the workplace: reflections of people with disabilities working in accessibility at Fable, Spotify, and Salesforce
Join us for our next Experts with Fable, a webinar series, on Thursday, May 18th at 2 pm ET / 11 am PT to learn how you can build out an inclusive and accessible culture on your team and at your organization, and why you should make it a priority.
makeitfable.com
May 15, 2023 at 5:54 PM
This Thursday is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) and I get to join some amazing people at Spotify and Fable for a roundtable discussion on working in accessibility as a person with a disability.
May 18th at 2PM EST. Virtual and free to register
May 18th at 2PM EST. Virtual and free to register
Reposted by Holden Foreman
Let's do a "Hire Me" thread!
If you are underrepresented + looking for a new role in tech, reply with your details!
Introduce yourself, tell us the role you are looking for, link to your website/LinkedIn and where people can reach you. I will repost
If you are underrepresented + looking for a new role in tech, reply with your details!
Introduce yourself, tell us the role you are looking for, link to your website/LinkedIn and where people can reach you. I will repost
May 1, 2023 at 6:16 PM
Let's do a "Hire Me" thread!
If you are underrepresented + looking for a new role in tech, reply with your details!
Introduce yourself, tell us the role you are looking for, link to your website/LinkedIn and where people can reach you. I will repost
If you are underrepresented + looking for a new role in tech, reply with your details!
Introduce yourself, tell us the role you are looking for, link to your website/LinkedIn and where people can reach you. I will repost
Reposted by Holden Foreman
@ washingtonpost dot com you read that right
May 3, 2023 at 4:23 PM
@ washingtonpost dot com you read that right
Please share this bot with folks you know who use screen readers. The bot is only useful if folks are aware of it. It is pretty cheap for me to maintain, but it would be ideal if the bot is something that is used only by those who need it. And write your own alt text to reduce the need for the bot.
Now that alt text is visible to sighted users, it's a good time to plug @alt-text.bsky.social. Tag the bot in a reply to a post that has one or more images without alt text, and then the bot uses OCR to extract the text and reply with the OCR'd text as alt text. (This only works for images of text.)
May 3, 2023 at 4:45 PM
Please share this bot with folks you know who use screen readers. The bot is only useful if folks are aware of it. It is pretty cheap for me to maintain, but it would be ideal if the bot is something that is used only by those who need it. And write your own alt text to reduce the need for the bot.
Now that alt text is visible to sighted users, it's a good time to plug @alt-text.bsky.social. Tag the bot in a reply to a post that has one or more images without alt text, and then the bot uses OCR to extract the text and reply with the OCR'd text as alt text. (This only works for images of text.)
May 3, 2023 at 4:41 PM
Now that alt text is visible to sighted users, it's a good time to plug @alt-text.bsky.social. Tag the bot in a reply to a post that has one or more images without alt text, and then the bot uses OCR to extract the text and reply with the OCR'd text as alt text. (This only works for images of text.)
Reposted by Holden Foreman
hey look @washingtonpost.com got their domain as the handle! can't tell you how many times I gave this exact thing as the hypothetical when we were pitching the idea
May 3, 2023 at 4:15 PM
hey look @washingtonpost.com got their domain as the handle! can't tell you how many times I gave this exact thing as the hypothetical when we were pitching the idea
Is @washingtonpost.com the first newspaper to use its domain as its Bluesky handle? cc @emily.bsky.team
May 3, 2023 at 3:45 PM
Is @washingtonpost.com the first newspaper to use its domain as its Bluesky handle? cc @emily.bsky.team
Twitter popularized the alt text (ALT) badge, and Bluesky will soon have something similar thanks to @renahlee.com. It could be argued that an image without alt text should also have a visible marker: an obnoxious warning icon. When clicked, the warning could expand or link to an alt text tutorial.
Making Bluesky be accessible from early on is going to be important. I was happy to see that "alt text" is enabled for images, but it appears not to be a norm that people use it. Hopefully, Bluesky will eventually include reminders/nudges, but until then, we can all help remind each other.
May 3, 2023 at 1:05 AM
Twitter popularized the alt text (ALT) badge, and Bluesky will soon have something similar thanks to @renahlee.com. It could be argued that an image without alt text should also have a visible marker: an obnoxious warning icon. When clicked, the warning could expand or link to an alt text tutorial.
Reposted by Holden Foreman
On the unofficial dev Discord @holden.bsky.social put something together: https://github.com/hs4man21/bluesky-alt-text-ocr
May 3, 2023 at 12:38 AM
On the unofficial dev Discord @holden.bsky.social put something together: https://github.com/hs4man21/bluesky-alt-text-ocr
Reposted by Holden Foreman
Reposted by Holden Foreman
I see people calling for AI to be used to describe images as well and those calls for the most part are well meaning it is no way viable yet. That when you post a meme, gif, etc that AI will be able to interpret it in the exact meaning and context that you are using it in that post.
May 1, 2023 at 4:58 PM
I see people calling for AI to be used to describe images as well and those calls for the most part are well meaning it is no way viable yet. That when you post a meme, gif, etc that AI will be able to interpret it in the exact meaning and context that you are using it in that post.
Even bigger shoutout to @renahlee.com for doing the actual work to improve accessibility on Bluesky
Hi frens 💙 Please check out @holden.bsky.social's poasts to learn more about accessibility 🤗
For blind and low-vision users, aria-labels are necessary to use Bluesky. It should only take minutes to implement the labels. For example, the aria-label for the post button can be “Post” and for the notifications bell, “Notifications” and so on and so forth. Thank you for working on accessibility!
April 27, 2023 at 12:09 AM
Even bigger shoutout to @renahlee.com for doing the actual work to improve accessibility on Bluesky
Content warning: loneliness, general sadness? (don't wanna self- or mis-diagnose myself here out of respect for others)
If you're struggling with mental health and self-doubt during this relatively warm and fuzzy phase of introductions and other activity on Bluesky, I want to say you're not alone.
If you're struggling with mental health and self-doubt during this relatively warm and fuzzy phase of introductions and other activity on Bluesky, I want to say you're not alone.
April 26, 2023 at 12:14 AM
Content warning: loneliness, general sadness? (don't wanna self- or mis-diagnose myself here out of respect for others)
If you're struggling with mental health and self-doubt during this relatively warm and fuzzy phase of introductions and other activity on Bluesky, I want to say you're not alone.
If you're struggling with mental health and self-doubt during this relatively warm and fuzzy phase of introductions and other activity on Bluesky, I want to say you're not alone.
Wisdom teeth removal: They do not mess around with the shots in your gums.
Alt text: The ceiling of my oral surgeon’s office, including the light they use on your mouth that hangs from the ceiling (idk what it is called)
I wrote alt text above because the field for it on iOS doesn’t seem to work.
Alt text: The ceiling of my oral surgeon’s office, including the light they use on your mouth that hangs from the ceiling (idk what it is called)
I wrote alt text above because the field for it on iOS doesn’t seem to work.
April 25, 2023 at 2:47 PM
Wisdom teeth removal: They do not mess around with the shots in your gums.
Alt text: The ceiling of my oral surgeon’s office, including the light they use on your mouth that hangs from the ceiling (idk what it is called)
I wrote alt text above because the field for it on iOS doesn’t seem to work.
Alt text: The ceiling of my oral surgeon’s office, including the light they use on your mouth that hangs from the ceiling (idk what it is called)
I wrote alt text above because the field for it on iOS doesn’t seem to work.
This is smart. I'd be happy to do the same for @support.bsky.team or go over the experience live on a call, again, keeping in mind I'm just one user and don't have a disability. I've been testing on my iPhone and MacBook Air with the built-in Apple screen reader VoiceOver, and the issues are shared.
Here is some rough footage of me using a screen reader here. I wanted to make this for the devs to have context as I submit feedback
Screen reader: TalkBack 13.1
Phone: Google Pixel 6 Pro
Android 13
https://youtu.be/W91wO8zYtFc
Screen reader: TalkBack 13.1
Phone: Google Pixel 6 Pro
Android 13
https://youtu.be/W91wO8zYtFc
Bluesky Screen Reader Demo
Screen reader: TalkBack 13.1
Phone: Google Pixel 6 Pro
Android 13
youtu.be
April 25, 2023 at 1:50 AM
This is smart. I'd be happy to do the same for @support.bsky.team or go over the experience live on a call, again, keeping in mind I'm just one user and don't have a disability. I've been testing on my iPhone and MacBook Air with the built-in Apple screen reader VoiceOver, and the issues are shared.
Reposted by Holden Foreman
If you decide to add hashtags can you default to Title Case? It’s more accessible.
April 24, 2023 at 5:52 PM
If you decide to add hashtags can you default to Title Case? It’s more accessible.
Reposted by Holden Foreman
today is my first day with the @bsky.app team! (new handle 👀)
i’ll be focused on developer relations and community 😊
if you build something on atproto or have feedback, tag/email me anytime! emily@blueskyweb.xyz
i’ll be focused on developer relations and community 😊
if you build something on atproto or have feedback, tag/email me anytime! emily@blueskyweb.xyz
April 24, 2023 at 5:58 PM
today is my first day with the @bsky.app team! (new handle 👀)
i’ll be focused on developer relations and community 😊
if you build something on atproto or have feedback, tag/email me anytime! emily@blueskyweb.xyz
i’ll be focused on developer relations and community 😊
if you build something on atproto or have feedback, tag/email me anytime! emily@blueskyweb.xyz
Reposted by Holden Foreman
On the highkey, @aliafonzy.bsky.social needs to be on Blue sky’s payroll. Because she got this popping. Good features and good community make a social media app successful..and she’s been curating the community so well!
April 24, 2023 at 5:13 PM
On the highkey, @aliafonzy.bsky.social needs to be on Blue sky’s payroll. Because she got this popping. Good features and good community make a social media app successful..and she’s been curating the community so well!
Reposted by Holden Foreman
Reposted by Holden Foreman
I’m really impressed with the responsiveness of the Bluesky team considering they JUST launched Android, consistently fixing bugs on iPhone and Android, AND working on safety and moderation tools.
April 24, 2023 at 2:46 AM
I’m really impressed with the responsiveness of the Bluesky team considering they JUST launched Android, consistently fixing bugs on iPhone and Android, AND working on safety and moderation tools.
I should’ve done an intro by now. I’m from St. Louis, Missouri, and I live in Brooklyn, New York. I’m an Accessibility Engineer at The Washington Post, where — aside from coding — I maintain standards and documentation. I love music and sports, especially Golden State Warriors basketball (go Dubs!).
WPDS - Accessibility | Resources
Accessibility resources, including links to documentation, guides, and more.
build.washingtonpost.com
April 24, 2023 at 2:37 AM
I should’ve done an intro by now. I’m from St. Louis, Missouri, and I live in Brooklyn, New York. I’m an Accessibility Engineer at The Washington Post, where — aside from coding — I maintain standards and documentation. I love music and sports, especially Golden State Warriors basketball (go Dubs!).