What's happening!

I'm really happy to be here, and to talk to you about a topic that is very close to my

heart.

Today, I want to talk with you about comics, and more specifically, I want to show you

some of the great things that I found on the internet, and how to create comics on the

web and the learning I had when I tried to create my very own web comic and how to make

this comic actually accessible, not only for a few or some but, actually, for literally

everyone.

This topic is so close to my heart because as many of you here in the audience, I'm a

great fan of comics myself.

I can remember when I was young, I would go to the comic book store, or maybe to the corner

shop and grab a magazine, sometimes like even hard-cover comic books, and try to learn more

about the stories and the adventures of my favourite protagonists and heroes.

I think most of you can actually relate to this.

Probably everyone can relate to this, don't you think?

I was thinking back then, when I was so enthusiastic about comics, it would be so cool to make

comic art myself.

Things turned out differently - I'm working as a software engineer, build web applications

and other things, but I like to draw in my free time.

I thought maybe I could make it a hobby or activity that I just pursue in my after-hours

after work, and I actually maybe create something?

So I had a look at what my options were.

I remember from back in the time that print comics like the traditional medium of comics

as we already know it for centuries, in fact, is something that might be worth pursuing.

And I looked at what the challenges were that I had to overcome to do this.

I realised that there were a couple of them that came into my realm as a comic artist.

First of all, I would have to find a way to publish myself, or maybe find a publisher.

I couldn't get ... to get my work out, which seemed like a laborious process.

Then I also realised that, when I actually wanted to make people aware of where my comic

is and what it does, I had to focus on print-based marketing.

Maybe I go to a fair, or tell me in person what this comic is about.

Last but not least, also I would have to go to this month or a year-long thing where I

actually draw everything, hand it into my publisher, and they edit, and they correct

it, and send it back, I have to reedit it, until I actually publish my first comic.

And this already seems like a bitch, but then I looked on the other side, how does it look

for challenge-wise for people who want to read my comic later on?

How do readers of my comic interact with this and what do they have to overcome?

I realised that first of all they have to have physical access to the medium, so they

have to go down to the book store, or at least they have to go to the door when the mail

order arrives, or pick up the package at the Post Office.

They also have to carry around the book and actually bring it with them.

They can't even go out with a whole library of comics.

They maybe take a book or two, and this is about it because of portability concerns.

But something that really struck me when I thought about it a little bit longer was something

much more significant, and, in fact, I kind of like didn't really consider that there

is this very kind of essential prerequisite that I have to fulfil when I actually read

a printed comic.

That is it actually requires me to have almost perfect vision.

I actually am required to be a sighted person to read a comic book from, I don't know, everything

funny - or my Mickey Mouse magazine.

This is something I found really odd to think about.

I was, "I didn't even consider this."

Because I looked like a sighted person all my life.

I never even bothered to think about it.

Then, after this, I was okay, but, actually, are there options?

Like how do you actually read comics when you're blind?

Or a visually impaired person?

I looked on the internet and I found a lot of interesting ideas of people who are already

putting into practice what I couldn't imagine even until this point.

People who actually tried to expand out of the visual realm of comics to other fields

of senses.

One project, for example, I found interesting was some that tried to explore haptic senses

and audio senses, so people who might have never had the ability to actually read comics

but also those who might have lost their vision during their life could go back and read their

favourite stories again as they used to.

One of these projects, for example, is called Live, by Philip Meyer, and he creates a Braille-like

comic book which shows the stories in a haptic manner.

You can touch the material in front of you to understand what is going on, and to understand

where locally and spatially protagonists are currently in.

This is an interesting web comic written by Christopher Wright who makes an intentional

effort not only to upload every single image of his strips on to his personal website,

but also includes right next to it a comic transcript that can be read by screenreader

users once they browse the website.

I think the most inspiring project in my opinion has been Comics and Power which is a comic

book store created for the blind which features several very popular comic books very well

that are narrated by a - generated by a single person in a fashion that creates this illusion

that you actually reading the comic, you're putting up the comic book reading from panel

to panel the text, but also the sound-like descriptions of any kind of noises.

And I found this really cool.

Looking at this, and actually trying to find out more about the guy who actually did this

to create this very immersive experience using audio-generated comics, I wanted to try something

similar myself.

I wanted to dive deeper into what can you do with audio?

How can you tap the potential of audio-narrated stories and how can you make use of this quite

easily on the web?

I knew that screenreaders were a quite straightforward approach because I knew so many web pages

could be read by screenreaders if it was done right.

So I started out.

In my day-to-day work, I actually work at a consulting firm that also specialises in

helping clients with Ruby and Amber, and this would be familiar for me, I was thinking it

would be cool if it was like a JavaScript application with the Amber text stack because

this is familiar.

Also, it actually helps me later on because it's already a fully fledged single-page application

framework to scale my application easily with co-released and co-maintained dependencies,

like data library, a testing solution, or also routed solution out of the box to make

it easier for me.

I would know that two years and three years from now, this app exists, and it should also

work and be maintainable.

Last but not least, I also thought it would be so cool if it was like a proper JavaScript

application because then I can actually with all of this interactivity, interesting animations

for a sighted user experience that might also be very immersive and interesting to explore.

So, looking at the approach that comics Comics of Power provided, I wanted to have a similar

user story for screenreader users for those who use assistive technologies to browse the

web comic.

I wanted to write an embedded transcript.

I couldn't think about having the transcript right next to the page.

I actually wanted to have the experience that would be similar to someone coming to the

website and reading panel for panel.

I also wanted to include annotation for imagery, not only to translate text, so people actually

can get, like, image of the scene, and last but not least, yes, I actually wanted to create

this illusion that there is this inner voice that you have when you have read something,

and that is what it actually reading to you.

I think it would be really cool to have it all generated to have proper voice acting,

but for this first version of this application, I really wanted just to have an approach to

make it as easily and accessible as possible, and a screenreader approach seemed perfect

for me.

This storytelling that a is screenreader-driven I realised was straightforward to implement

once I took advantage of HTML and the powers of area.

In my application, for example, I have these single frames that you can see here on the

left side.

Here, for example, be you can see like a person on a boat.

They're, like, on the sea, and you can also see is a speech bubble saying "no" and just

like a sound word saying "splash".

Each of these images can be contained in several layers of images, so I can have an a background

image, a foreground image, and all kinds of other text bubbles as well that I embedded

in the single frame, and I knew that to actually make the whole scene be narrated as I would

see it as the reader, I wanted to have one single description of it.

I wanted to have one single tag, or one single labour for the screenreader to actually read.

I decided to make use of art attributes, or area labels, and this case, and, more specifically

in this case, with the area label, and the image roll, in my application to actually

make sure that everything that is told in this image, it's also available for the screenreader

users.

There is also a word of caution, though: you can use area labels when you want, if it is

necessary, if you realise that it really eases your development effort, but using area all

over your place in your application, over the use of using semantic HTML can also be

hard for screenreaders to actually read, and therefore they should only be used sparingly.

What you can also do if you know you have one single image, just use the alt attribute

of the image tag, and then you actually are on the best way to actually implement this,

because browsers are actually built in a way to support this straightforwardly with very

good support.

And 1&1 interesting thing I found with building this web comic is realising how powerful it

is to embed not only an image but HTML, but once I do so, it becomes the screenreaders,

and it's available just by default.

Don't have to do anything but it's already there in my narrative.

I will show you how I like to test this later on in my application to see what is actually

happening.

I like to use this specific screenreader called Chrome Box.

It's like a free screenreader plugin you can plug in Chrome, and in Mac Voiceover, and

Windows user - it's a popular screenreader in the blind community.

I think any screenreader you get started with is great for accessibility testing.

Let's see how it goes.

So, this is still a little bit quiet, I think.

Maybe let's try just how it goes.

Can you already hear something?

Here on the stage, it's a bit hard to tell.

Now we're we're on the website.

I have this frame embedded.

"Click here to maintain ...". With the screenreader, it can navigate the page and skip from each

interactive element to the next interactive element on the page.

Also, yes, described by the screenreader, and, most importantly, each single frame can

actually be interacted with as well, and it can actually be read.

"There is a person in a thick jacket sitting on the boat in a dark and stormy sea."

Image.

I'm not a recognised book author yet, but I'm getting there.

"The boat is rocking apply while the waves splash against it.

Image "Swoosh.

Splash."

[Applause].

The person in the boat is sitting on it motionless.

Image.."

every element can be read to you by the screenreader.

Also, the text bubbles that might accrue.

"Their face still unrecognisable in the darkened half hood of the cover of their jacket.

Which way?"

I found this impressive.

This comes out of the box.

Yes, I don't have to do too much effort.

HTML is already on my side.

This is is really great.

Let's just like it in.

[Applause].

Thank you.

Something I find super striking every time I go on to Reddit or see demonstrations of

blind users showing how they interact with the web is that the zoom feature is so - yes,

so obligatory for an experience on the web for them.

Being able to not only on your desktop but also on your hand held device, to go in and

tap in and zoom in with your two fingers is essential.

What you might have seen in some of the applications that you've wrote, yes, I'm guilty of this

myself, is something like that.

So this actually sets the maximum scale of the whole screen to one, meaning you cannot

zoom any more, and this is something I sometimes implement because there a user request that

every time I tap into an input field, suddenly, the whole page zooms and I can't do anything

any more.

You add this, and the issue is fixed.

It also introduces a major bug for anyone who has a visual impairment and can barely

see what is on the screen, so things are too small, or the images are a little bit too

blurry, had too low contrast.