Day: November 23, 2017

clatterbane:

Well, amusing translations aside? So far, I’m glad I decided to try the kneewarmers.

(Didn’t say before, but I’m guessing the “mink” there was referring to the Muppet fur patches.)

Don’t think I’ll be wearing them out of the house. Probably too itchy under the pants. But, the combo of warmth and a little compression has been feeling great so far.

Whatever the hell the exact problem is now, the Cold Hard Knees of Doom have really not been enjoying the weather here lately. It was bad enough last winter, but just plain ridiculous this fall to date. I’ve really been feeling the cold in general, and some extra insulation for the legs definitely seemed worth a try.

Hard to see anything but the Leopard Muppet fur, with the black on black theme. What a surprise, right? 🙄

Well, amusing translations aside? So far, I’m glad I decided to try the kneewarmers.

(Didn’t say before, but I’m guessing the “mink” there was referring to the Muppet fur patches.)

Don’t think I’ll be wearing them out of the house. Probably too itchy under the pants. But, the combo of warmth and a little compression has been feeling great so far.

Whatever the hell the exact problem is now, the Cold Hard Knees of Doom have really not been enjoying the weather here lately. It was bad enough last winter, but just plain ridiculous this fall to date. I’ve really been feeling the cold in general, and some extra insulation for the legs definitely seemed worth a try.

miaoumint:

voxiferous:

grumpsaesthetics:

grumpsaesthetics:

every year around christmas me and my grandma play this fun family game called “maybe you want to put jesus in your room instead, sweetie? :)”. now, it’s important to note that the jesus referred to in our game is not actually the real jesus christ, but instead a wooden figure i made in 2011 that has an uncanny resemblance to the lord and savior himself

so what happens is that i place jesus in our living room, and my grandma smiles and asks me if i don’t want to decorate my room with him instead. i ask her in return if she thinks my jesus figure is ugly (which he is), but she reassures me that this is not the case. however, a couple of days later jesus mysteriously disappears from our living room, and appear in my room instead

now, the real jesus christ might have been able to perform a miracle like this, but please remember that the jesus in our story is only a figure made out of wood. he can not move on his own, so i think we can safely say that my grandma is the prime suspect here

the first year i would often confront my grandma about this, but she would always make up an excuse and never straight up tell me she moved him because he’s so ugly it’s an embarrassment to the family

eventually i grew tired of her lies, so now we only move jesus around in silence. one second he’s in the living room, the next he’s back in my room. in a way i think this adds an extra element of excitement to the holiday season, because you never know for sure when jesus is going to be moved again

and so it begins..

i was not fucking ready for this photograph

always reblog

aegipan-omnicorn:

ddnosakechi:

aegipan-omnicorn:

strangestructures:

assemble-the-fangirls:

nonelvis:

kleinsaur:

decodering:

Dos and don’ts on designing for accessibility

Karwai Pun, GOV.UK:

The dos and don’ts of designing for accessibility are general guidelines, best design practices for making services accessible in government. Currently, there are six different posters in the series that cater to users from these areas: low vision, D/deaf and hard of hearing, dyslexia, motor disabilities, users on the autistic spectrum and users of screen readers.

[…] Another aim of the posters is that they’re meant to be general guidance as opposed to being overly prescriptive. Using bright contrast was advised for some (such as those with low vision) although some users on the autistic spectrum would prefer differently. Where advice seems contradictory, it’s always worth testing your designs with users to find the right balance, making compromises that best suit the users’ needs.

[github]

I’ve been wanting something like this to reference! Boosting for the others that like to dabble in code/design.

This is some of the most lucidly written accessibility advice I’ve seen. Making accessible web pages should be the default, not an add-on. It’s really not that hard to do, especially when you think about it from the start – and it benefits everyone.

(Obligatory note that there are exceptions to some of these guidelines, e.g., “bunching” some interactions together is an important way to cue which interactions are related to each other, but that’s why these are guidelines, not absolute rules.)

young web designer: thank you oh my god no one has been able to explain this quite as well and this is just good shit

h4.cjk { font-family: “Droid Sans Fallback”; }h4.ctl { font-family: “FreeSans”; }h3.cjk { font-family: “Droid Sans Fallback”; }h3.ctl { font-family: “FreeSans”; }p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }a:link { }

So, did anybody
notice the irony of posting about accessible design by using pictures
without a description? Designers can be disabled as well! Not everybody is gonna realize that they can
follow the link and scroll all the way to the bottom to get the text. So without further ado, an image description.

[Image description
from OP: 6 posters with two columns in each, giving instructions
about accessible design for various groups. The posters were designed
by Karwai Pun and her team at Home Office Digital. The text of the
posters follows:

Designing for users on the autistic spectrum

Do

  • use simple colours

  • write in plain English

  • use simple sentences and bullets

  • make buttons descriptive – for
    example, Attach files

  • build simple and consistent layouts

Don’t

  • use bright contrasting colours

  • use figures of speech and idioms

  • create a wall of text

  • make buttons vague and
    unpredictable – for example, Click here

  • build complex and cluttered layouts

Designing for users of screen readers

Do

  • describe images and provide
    transcripts for video

  • follow a linear, logical layout

  • structure content using HTML5

  • build for keyboard use only

  • write descriptive links and heading – for example, Contact us

Don’t

  • only show information in an image
    or video

  • spread content all over a page

  • rely on text size and placement
    for structure

  • force mouse or screen use

  • write uninformative links and heading – for example, Click
    here

Designing for users with low vision

Do

  • use good contrasts and a readable
    font size

  • publish all information on web
    pages (HTML)

  • use a combination of colour,
    shapes and text

  • follow a linear, logical layout
    -and ensure text flows and is visible when text is magnified to 200%

  • put buttons and notifications in context

Don’t

  • use low colour contrasts and small
    font size

  • bury information in downloads

  • only use colour to convey meaning

  • spread content all over a page
    -and force user to scroll horizontally when text is magnified to
    200%

  • separate actions from their context

Designing for users with physical or motor
disabilities

Do

  • make large clickable actions

  • give form fields space

  • design for keyboard or speech only
    use

  • design with mobile and touch
    screen in mind

  • provide shortcuts

Don’t

  • demand precision

  • bunch interactions together

  • make dynamic content that requires
    a lot of mouse movement

  • have short time out windows

  • tire users with lots of typing and scrolling

Designing for users who are D/deaf or hard of
hearing

Do

  • write in plain English

  • use subtitles or provide
    transcripts for video

  • use a linear, logical layout

  • break up content with
    sub-headings, images and videos

  • let users ask for their preferred communication support when
    booking appointments

Don’t

  • use complicated words or figures
    of speech

  • put content in audio or video only

  • make complex layouts and menus

  • make users read long blocks of
    content

  • don’t make telephone the only means of contact for users

Designing for users with dyslexia

Do

  • use images and diagrams to support
    text

  • align text to the left and keep a
    consistent layout

  • consider producing materials in
    other formats (for example, audio and video)

  • keep content short, clear and
    simple

  • let users change the contrast between background and text

Don’t

  • use large blocks of heavy text

  • underline words, use italics or
    write capitals

  • force users to remember things
    from previous pages – give reminders and prompts

  • rely on accurate spelling – use
    autocorrect or provide suggestions

  • put too much information in one place

End of image description.]

From @strangestructures: 

So, did anybody
notice the irony of posting about accessible design by using pictures
without a description? (end quote)

I did!  Thank you for writing this up!

Also, for the general discussion: Now, go through these lists, and see how many “Do’s” and “Don’t’s” overlap. 

Some needs are conflicting (unless you put them under a single guideline of: “provide a choice of formats”), but most are shared across multiple disability needs.

That’s a big whopping clue that accessible design is good design, period (and not just when it comes to Web pages, either).                 

Thank you for the transcript! My processing issues cos autism, dyslexic traits and ADHD made reading the original image difficult (ironically.) The text is too small and the background is too bright – another point for making things accessible. 

^^^This is the irony that @strangestructures talked about^^^

Okay, for extra credit: how many “don’ts” did this guide to good web design actually do? 😉

Source: decodering

aegipan-omnicorn:

hiiimaugust:

petewntz:

recontweek:

petewntz:

recontweek:

petewntz:

why r cookies called cookies if u … Bake them ..

compelling. cant believe no one has ever noticed this before in the history of forever. u are a visionary. how do u come up with this stuff. genius.

lol okay but can you answer my question? no. u cant. thank u for ur comment, ur doing nothing to help our environment or ease the publics curiosity

because calling them “bakies” is the dumbest fucking thing anyone has ever heard

still doesnt answer my Question 🤔🤔🤔🤔

It’s an Anglican spelling of the Dutch word for “small cakes” I believe

I  believe @hiiimaugust is correct.  …But my Internet search powers are glitching, and I can’t find the actual Dutch word.

As I understand it, early English colonists called them “Biscuits,” like they did (and still do) in the Home Country (and “biscuit” comes from “Twice baked,” because you’d bake them once to cook them, and then again to dry them out, so they don’t go moldy in the days before refrigerators).

But then the English/American settlers met the Dutch/American settlers, and the Dutch kept talking about these little treats they called Kuchen (I think?). And English, being the vacuum cleaner language, sucked it up, and changed the ‘en’ ending to ‘ie’.

Not even that big a change, from “koekje” with the pronunciation manglicized some as usual. 😉 Meaning “little cake”. Kuchen is German for cake, koek in Dutch.

(A good number of frequently ridiculed common US English usages differing from the British just got snagged in from other languages in North America, btw–in classic tradition for the language. 😅 Besides a lot of vocabulary, the large number of German immigrants in particular apparently had quite an effect.)

onewordtest:

bpdzoldyck:

Autistic people have rich and fulfilling lives & allistic people do not, and will never, have the perspective necessary to judge our qaulity of life for us.

haha, I thought this was just saying that allistics do not have rich and fulfilling lives. and I was all set and ready to agree.  

Latest news on TS – tic suppression in the classroom

mybearskin:

gingerautie:

clatterbane:

Though, tbf, there has also been a swing toward use of behavior therapy to suppress tics in kids 😱

“oh, the thing you’re noticing where your kid comes home from school and tics a lot, that’s just because home and school are different environment”

uh, yeah… it’s because school is an environment where they have to suppress, and home isn’t. If it was static environmental things at home, you wouldn’t see the cluster of tics when a kid gets home.

this is a really common occurrence for kids (and tbh I think adults too) and manifests in other ways too – emotional outbursts and meltdowns are really typical especially for kids on the spectrum, or who are experiencing communication barriers. when you move from a place of higher stress (school/care) to one of lower stress (home) a release of that tension is totally understandable.

Autistic adult fitting Tourette criteria here, and these days I often need at least half an hour to decompress some after a grocery shopping trip. Extremely glad nobody has expected me to sit quietly in a classroom for hours on end for a very long time now.

To make it even better, here’s one proposed “environmental” explanation from another piece I ran across (which I had remembered as being in this one):

At first, this may seem confusing, especially when you observe your kids ticcing a lot after returning from school. Researchers still acknowledge this common pattern. Many children tic less at school and then tic a lot when they get home. Rather than being caused by tic suppression, researchers believe this ticcing can be explained by other factors. Experts state: “It is also likely that fewer tics at school and more at home after school is a function of the child being engaged in calm mental activities at school and when they got home they were excited and enjoying the freedom of being out of school” [Leckman, Bloch, & Kind, “The Diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome”, found in A Family’s Guide to Tourette Syndrome edited by Walkup, Mink, & McNaught (2012)”].

The above explanation underscores how tics can be affected by environmental factors. It is common for tics to worsen when a person is tired, sick, hungry, anxious or excited. Similarly, when a person is calm, relaxed or engaged in an enjoyable or absorbing activity, their tics tend to decrease.

So, a school environment where you’re being expected to suppress involuntary tics is supposedly calm and not at all stressful. (Guessing the same would get applied to autistic traits.)

I guess they can keep telling themselves that. What really concerns me is the number of parents who would be more inclined to believe them over the evidence in front of them.

Latest news on TS – tic suppression in the classroom