Accessibility of posts publicized to Facebook

  • Resolved cmcontreras

    (@cmcontreras)


    3 years, 10 months ago

    I’m using Jetpack to publiceze my blog posts to a Facebook page FB.me/aplenavistapr but for some reason I’m not getting the text there but some kind of image which I cannot describe since I’m a blind person. The problem is that whatever is that FB is showing, it is not accessible with screen readers. Some of my followers are also blind, and although I started my blog many years ago, I’m trying now to post excerpts of my posts to my new FB Page. Is this a problem caused by Jetpack, Facebook, or me? I haven’t found any settings that I can alter.

    Another issue, which is minor, is with the sharing buttons, and in particular with the share to Email. I always thought that it wasn’t working, because when I click it nothing happens that is noticed by the screen reader, Voiceover in my case since I’m using a Mac. The other day I click it to see if the problem persisted with the same results as always. Later browsing the page I noticed that at the end of the page there were the fields requiring the information to send the email. It will be better if a new window or tab is opened so that screen reader readers can notice that something happened.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Plugin Contributor Dan (a11n)

    (@drawmyface)

    Hi there

    When a post contains an image, the ‘alt’ text of the image will be used in the Facebook post to describe the image.

    This issue appears to be happening because when a post contains no images, Jetpack provides a blank image to use as a placeholder, and this blank image does not include an ‘alt’ attribute.

    I’ve reported this to our developers here:
    https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/issues/18307

    You can follow along there for updates on this.

    —

    I’ve also opened a report for the email sharing issue you mentioned:
    https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/issues/18310

    If you want to add any comments to those issues, please feel free.

    Thread Starter cmcontreras

    (@cmcontreras)

    Dan: Thanks for the response, but I’m not sure if we are understanding each other. My concern is not with the description of the image per se. The issue is that Jetpack is not sending the Title, the content or the link to Facebook in an accesible fashion. The only thing posted is an image with what I assume is that information embedded in the image so that people who can see can read it, but blind people like me can’t do anything with that. Or do you meant that if I include an image in the post, it will be send to FB with the text content attached as the alt text of the image?

    Plugin Contributor Jen H. (a11n)

    (@jenhooks)

    Hi @cmcontreras,

    Thank you for the clarification.

    Jetpack’s Publicize sends an excerpt of your post to Facebook, as well as a “card” which includes your site’s domain, the title of the post, and a few lines of content from the post itself alongside the image (if applicable.) There is definitely more content there than it sounds like your screen reader is parsing through.

    Is your screen reader able to work as expected with this page on Facebook? https://www.facebook.com/accessibility

    Thread Starter cmcontreras

    (@cmcontreras)

    Hi Dan,
    Now I’m starting to understand what is the problem. I think it is what you called the “card”. That card seems to be some kind of image that can’t be read by the screen readers, violating the accessibility standards. I my last try I wrote a custom excerpt and that text was accessible, but not the info included in the card. Does Jetpack has a setting that will let me send plain text with the title and link instead of sending the card? The truth is that that kind of setting could solve my problem, but still other people that use Jetpack to publicize their posts to Facebook will do it with out knowing that their content is not accessible to blind people.I

    Is this “card”a requirement of Facebook, or just a feature of Jetpack. Maybe a solution is to include the text on the card as alt text to that image so that at least the screen reader could read it and then if the blind person click the card, he will be sent to the original site of the post.

    Thanks for your help in this matter.

    Carlos

    Thread Starter cmcontreras

    (@cmcontreras)

    Sorry Jen H. I thought that your message came from Dan.

    Plugin Contributor Dan (a11n)

    (@drawmyface)

    Hi Carlos

    This appears to be a Facebook issue, as discussed here:
    https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/issues/18307#issuecomment-759263827

    I’d suggest reporting this directly to Facebook:
    https://developers.facebook.com/support/bugs/

    Thread Starter cmcontreras

    (@cmcontreras)

    Thanks for guiding me in the right direction. I will check with FB.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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