Making Memes Accessible to the Blind
blindSighted people are all too familiar with memes; the internet is littered with the viral posts. From funny to disturbing, memes connect us with one another in a myriad of ways. However, blind people are still not able to enjoy memes. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), for the 2.2 billion people worldwide who report visual impairments or blindness, memes are one of the thousands of images on the internet that are inaccessible.

"There's a tendency in accessibility-related fields for people to focus on making the workplace accessible, and making transportation accessible, because those are daily needs," says Cole Gleason, a Ph.D. candidate at Carnegie Mellon University and the co-author of Making Memes Accessible. "And people usually leave the recreational or silly or leisure activities to the later stages of accessibility, so humor was definitely not high on people's priority lists."

Please contact SDCB to learn more about our programs for the blind and visually impaired.

"'I Wish We Could Connect on This Level.' Memes Still Aren't Accessible to People Who Are Blind. What's Being Done About It?"



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