Cartoon Accessibility

Today many cartoons aren't easily accessible. The only alternate text for many cartoons on the web today might be something like "Today's cartoon", and gives no information about the contents of the cartoon. Also, because the cartoon is a fixed image, it's appearance doesn't change in high contrast mode, and so is inaccessible to people who use high contrast settings. In time, it should be possible to make cartoons on the web more accessible.

 

Cartoons and screen readers

There are many web sites containing popular cartoons today. Most cartoon sites have alternate text for the cartoons which is independent of the cartoon content. For example, the alternate text may be "Today's strip" or "Today's comic". The most popular cartoons don't have alternate text that actually describes the cartoon content such that the cartoon is accessible via a screen reader.

Some sites do have cartoons with nearby text which includes the dialog in the cartoon and a description of the scene in the cartoon. For example, the following link goes to a page showing a cartoon from the New Yorker magazine, Click to go to cartoon web site. The image of the cartoon on the web page has no text associated with it which would allow a screen reader to describe the contents of the cartoon, (say by providing an "alternate text" property or "long description" property for the image.) However there is descriptive text on the web page near the cartoon, which says:

“I haven’t the slightest idea who he is. He came bundled with the software.” (One executive to another about a man sitting at the computer.) 

So in fact that web page is showing a cartoon which is more accessible that many popular cartoons on the web. Perhaps in the future more cartoons on the web will have some alternate text which would contain a full textual description of the cartoon. For example, the image below is a cartoon whose alternate text is a description of the cartoon. The image is not a typical hand drawn line-based image, but rather a collection of images from other sources. The alternate text is also displayed below the cartoon.

 

Cartoon of Darth Vader at a desk. He's on the phone saying "No, I definitely said War Drones. That's right, War Drones. Well, you tell me. What AM I going to do with ten thousand wardrobes?"

Cartoon of Darth Vader at a desk. He's on the phone saying "No, I definitely said War Drones. That's right, War Drones. Well, you tell me. What AM I going to do with ten thousand wardrobes?"

 

Ideally in the future, most popular cartoons on the web will have nearby text on the page which describes the contents of the cartoon, as well as some brief alternate text saying that the image is a cartoon, and some longer descriptive text for the cartoon which is accessible to a screen reader.

Click here for another Darth Vader furniture cartoon.

 

Cartoons and High Contrast

Being fixed images, cartoons on the web do not change as the computer's display settings are changed to show high contrast. But given that many cartoons are often line based drawings of black on white, they could be shown effectively in whatever high contrast settings are current on the computer. It would be possible for the image of the cartoon to be copied from the web page and pasted into another program which could convert the cartoon into another image based on the current high contrast settings.

For example, the image on the left below is a black and white line-based cartoon. The image on the right is an example of what that cartoon might look like after copying the cartoon into an image conversion program which changed the image to use the current high contrast colors. In this example, it is showing yellow on black.

Cartoon (black on white). A kangaroo is looking disappointedly at its pouch, while the sound of snoring comes from the pouch. The kangaroo is saying “I spend all my time doing things for you, and all I get is arguments and complaints”. The caption below the kangaroo says “A kangaroo’s small pocket of resistance”.            Cartoon (yellow on black). A kangaroo is looking disappointedly at its pouch, while the sound of snoring comes from the pouch. The kangaroo is saying “I spend all my time doing things for you, and all I get is arguments and complaints”. The caption below the kangaroo says “A kangaroo’s small pocket of resistance”.

If you would like to read about a simple program that does some of the color conversion described above, click Sample color converter details.

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