A.I. automated accessibility + English-dominated internet (SBLTN Lab Notes 047)
AI-generated captions, English: more popular online than offline, NYC Pride branding
IN THE MARGINS
Niche nonsense
Over the years as a professional creative, one of the usual debates is about being a generalist versus a specialist - niche down or stay broad.
“If you have a variety of skills, highlight them and show off your versatility. In a volatile market, generalists seem to have an advantage.” -Austin Saylor (Motion Designer)
I agree with Austin because being versatile means adapting to the needs of your client as the industry changes. Their budget is may be more flexible when they know you’re a one-stop-shop. Narrowing down your focus lets you hone in on one thing and become known for it - thus being the big fish in the smaller niche pond. There’s pros and cons for each side but I lean into being a generalist.
Outside of the client and business realm, I’m believe in embracing all the things you enjoy and even thinking of ways you can bring them together. Hell, my business name, sublation, is from the concept of combining things to make something greater than the individual parts.
Whether you call it being a multipotentialite, multi-hyphenate, or generalist, I consider having varied interests and skills as a superpower. I chatted with a program that focuses on design for social innovation about how this superpower benefited my biz and was also personally fulfilling. (View the video below or click here)
ACCESSIBILITY
Update: Tool for testing color contrast
I’ll try to keep y’all updated on previously shared topics (e.g. when a ‘best practice’ changes, the decision of a court case related to accessibility, etc).
That said, there’s a great update for testing color contrast. Thanks to
for sharing a nuanced tool that uses Advanced Perception of Color Algorithm (APCA). It gives you exactly what size font to use for your chosen color combination and for which font weight! Keep in mind that different fonts have different levels of legibility. A serif font with lots of thin strokes might be harder to read than a sans serif with all strokes of the same width. Even still, this tool will speed up my workflow and testing quite a bit!A.I. automated accessibility
Circle, a platform for online courses and memberships believes that artificial intelligence (AI) can help us foster human connections. The platform will soon be using AI-generated transcriptions and captions for uploaded videos. I’m cautiously optimistic and here’s why…
I’m HYPED for AI to be used in this way because:
It makes it easier for people to get started on using accessible practices. Creating transcripts and captions for videos can be daunting for first-timers so this automatic feature reduces some overwhelm.
It can increase learning and engagement. Transcripts help educators and creators make their content searchable - more easily providing community members with the information they’re looking for, especially with interactive timestamps. Captions help improve learning and comprehension for: d/Deaf or hard of hearing people, new language learners, people in sound-sensitive environments (aka audio is turned off), people that benefit from cognitive reinforcement (reading and hearing simultaneously can improve memory), etc.
Smaller communities can get more exposure. If the community is public, transcripts and captions can be found by search engines. More people may join because the content can appear in relevant results when someone is looking for answers or topics related to that community.
I’m a bit BUMMED because:
In the announcement, they used the term “hearing impaired” instead of “deaf or hard of hearing”1
The words “captions” and “transcripts” are used interchangeably but they actually mean two different things. It would’ve been helpful to explain this in their automated transcription FAQ.
The feature will only be available on the higher paid tiers. I think accessibility should be available for ALL and not behind hierarchical paywalls that create more inequity. Just like budgets are set for marketing or ads, there should be a budget for accessibility because it should be part of product development.
They sell the automation as “accessibility on autopilot” without mentioning that all captions and transcripts that are auto-generated should be human-reviewed for accuracy and mistakes, especially since the content acts as a searchable database.
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
English: more popular online than offline
Studies reveal the internet speaks a language that most people don’t. There are an estimated 7,000 languages spoken worldwide2 but English is used by more than 55% of online domains3.
“That makes English's representation on the internet more than 10x the 4.7% of the world’s population that speak it as their primary language. That’s the most staggering overrepresentation, although other nations like Japan, France, and Germany also see their languages disproportionately used4. Conversely, Chinese language groups like Mandarin and Min are employed on just 1.4% of web domains, despite being spoken as a primary language by 16.4% of the world’s population. [Bhanu Neupane, a program manager at UNESCO who works with language inequity,] is concerned that, in 15 years, there will be “just 5 or 10 languages spoken prominently in business and online”. -Chartr (source)
It baffles me how English is prioritized and pushed to be the common denominator for multilingual people. It’s annoying how English has such ~global power~ and is deemed the “universal language” yet way less people speak it compared to other global majority languages. And to be honest, I think it’s overrated with how it sounds and its lack of depth or nuance. That said, I do however acknowledge my proximity to power and privilege by knowing English and having it as my primary language.
This imbalance makes me concerned about the inclusivity of the internet. Half of the internet being in English has a lot to do with imperialism and colonialism, technology access, the digital gap, and the control of information - but that’s a massive discussion for another day. The United Nations has efforts to get global universal internet access by 2030 so I’m hoping that could accelerate the pace of change.
“Having said that, the bigger picture is hard to miss. Millions of non-native English speakers and non-English speakers are stuck using the web in a language other than the one they were born into. And since publicly available text on the internet is now often being used to train large language models like Bard and GPT-4, it suggests we’re already building the same imbalance into technology’s next frontier: artificial intelligence.” -Rest of World report
The one thing the internet can be good for in terms of language learning is using it for the preservation and revitalization of nearly extinct languages. (I’m biased for Hawaiian to be at the top of the list 😀 I ka 'ōlelo nō ke ola, I ka 'ōlelo nō ka make)
ART & DESIGN
NYC Pride Branding
June is “Pride Month'' in the United States. It’s a celebration and acknowledgement of people that identify as LGBTQ+. Events encourage people to gather in activism, in protest, in commemoration, and in advocacy. Year-round, organizations work toward eliminating the varying types of discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and educating people on how they can support the cause and change policies.
Since the NYC Pride parade just wrapped, I figured we’d dive into the design of it!
In 2022, Heritage of Pride, the nonprofit that plans and produces New York City’s official LGBTQIA+ Pride events, revealed a new brand identity. The goal of the rebrand was to create a feeling of inclusivity and capture the spirit and importance of the organization’s home city. The new brand purpose was to inspire and empower every LGBTQIA+ person to proudly love and live their truth, speaking to NYC Pride’s roots in protest.
What were the big changes?
They shifted from unique annual themes to one consistent identity used for all future promotion.
“Over the past decade or so, our logos and visual identities for NYC Pride have evolved each year to correspond with our annual themes and campaigns. But truly cementing our commitment to the community required an enduring brand icon that would drive recognition and equity.” -Dan Dimant, Media Director at NYC Pride (Press Release)
The iconic Pride flag got a refresh.
“Featuring the iconic waving flag, the new logo captures the brand’s spirit of celebration and activism. Known as a universal symbol of safety and allyship, the Pride flag within the logo features a gradient, providing valuable flexibility and inclusivity for different subgroups within the LGBTQIA+ community.” (Press Release)
They even snuck in a little typography treat!
“The flag in the new logo subtly features the letters ‘NYC,’ paying homage to the city in which the organization was born,” said Dimitri Theodoropoulos, Senior Design Director at Lippincott, a global creative consultancy. (Press Release)
Speaking of type, Hoefler&Co used Gotham and Knockout - the latter having its roots in the eclectic typography of 19th century broadsides. Broadsides, single sheets of paper printed on one side only, were mass produced and used for announcements, official notices like proclamations, advocating political and social causes, etc. Since then, the format has evolved and is used in protest art such as large scale and risograph prints.
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Signing off from the Starship SBLTN,
Laneen (Pronouns: she/they)
🎧 Listening: “In The Mood” by Glenn Miller
✔️ Random Fact: Only about 10% of humanity is left-handed
I can’t speak for the d/D and HoH community as a whole, but in my experience and shared discussions, “hearing impaired” is now seen as offensive in the U.S. Identity language changes over time and although the term was once politically correct, it’s now seen as implying the person is substandard or damaged. That said, identity language also depends on the individual’s preference and other factors such as regional dialect, age/generational customs, etc. The collective jury is still out on whether “visually impaired” is socially acceptable or not.
“How many languages are there in the world?” (Linguistic Society of America)
“The most used languages on the internet” (Rest of World)
As stated by the Rest Of World report: “There are a few caveats you should keep in mind regarding this data set: The data comes from scans of publicly available websites, so anything that is behind a login is probably going uncounted, which includes apps and social networks. (This quirk suggests the scans may be undercounting the Chinese internet, in particular, although it’s hard to know by how much.) Even within web-accessible social networks like Reddit, the scans aren’t designed to go through every page of a domain, which means they may be undercounting non-English communities on English-language sites. There are more details here, but the data should be read as a broad survey of websites, not a precise measurement.”