I don't know when this happened (or it may have just always been there but I never noticed) but Weebly now has an Alt Text feature that allows you to easily write image descriptions on any images on your website! This is very cool, for a couple of reasons.
The first, less important reason, is that if your alt text contains keywords, your image may be found by these keywords, but the normal description doesn't have to include them. It could help images or entire websites get a little bit more exposure. However, what's even better is the second reason: accessibility. Alt text will be read by screen readers, so people who are blind or have any sight problems who use screen readers (programs that will read online text to them) can also understand what is going on in the image. This is something that a lot of people never even think about when creating content, so I am very glad that weebly has brought this technology to an easy to edit place on images (the same place you would click in order to write a regular caption). I learned a lot about this as I've been doing fan art for a podcast, because as a completely auditory medium, there's more hard of seeing people in the audience since it is a media form that is more accessible to them, and so many people in the community have been encouraging more image descriptions. There are people who aren't completely blind who can definitely enjoy visual art, but may just need a little bit of extra description in order to figure out what they're looking at. For instance, telling someone who sees a blob in the middle of the screen, "hey, that's a face!" might clarify it enough for them to be able to see the face you drew, much like how when we look at clouds, if someone suggests what the cloud looks like, it becomes much easier to see. If you include an important image or diagram that is crucial to understanding a blog post, an image description means that there is a better chance that people who have trouble seeing can still follow. It's also helpful if you took a screenshot of some text to transcribe it to alt text, because a screen reader wouldn't be able to read that. Personally, I think, from both a business and humanitarian standpoint, the more people who can enjoy your content, the better, so even if this feature would only help a few people, it's still very worth it to use. Of course, it is a bit more work, but image descriptions should be less than 125 words (this is so that people with screen readers don't have to sit there for a long time as each image is being described) so it shouldn't actually take that long, and it's a really great thing to do.
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This is a blog post about blog posts (super meta right?) So, why am I talking about this? Well, recently I've come to resent doing blog posts, despite the fact that I love writing and haven't minded writing them in the past. I'm sure the past few posts I've made have been incredibly boring to read: they've been uninspired and feel more like a boring task than a learning opportunity. My blogging lately has sucked.
So what am I going to do to improve? I think the general writing style that I have is fine, but there is one major change I want to make: shorter blog posts. I recently saw another blog that inspired me because of how short he was able to make his posts and still get the point across. I need to work on being more concise in my ideas. This doesn't mean putting in any less effort, because now I'll have to focus more on summarizing, which also means focusing on stronger comprehension since in order to adequately summarize, I have to fully understand what we're learning about, as well as understand the external sources I find thoroughly. Though it seems like a very small thing, I think overall it will help me actually learn from blog posts, keep me more interested in blogging since I am changing up the style a bit, and make my blog posts a little more approachable. So we've just completed a four-week game, and I'll talk about it later, because it was literally finished this class period, but I do want to talk about time management. This isn't completely specific to Game Design, it's very important for every part of life really, especially school (as seen by the fact that I had to wake up at 4 to finish homework last night because I left it until the last minute), but I'm going to talk about it for both games and just in general here. This is just going to kind of be a reflection on my own time management skills (or current lack there of) and sort of set some goals to reach in the future.
It probably seems very obvious to everyone, but calendars are really helpful for me. Despite this, I don't actually use one, and I think that's what I want to change. Trello was a really nice program for being able to check things off as we did them during this project, but I don't like how you can only have one deadline per checklist. I think a calendar combined with Trello would be effective because then you can still set strict deadlines and a good schedule while still being able to write checklists that you can easily check off from anywhere. Since it's digital, I wouldn't forget it at home or anything. Setting up this system or a similar system both for game design projects, and possibly just school work is a big goal for me. However, another problem I face is forgetting that the deadline for a big project - like 40 chemistry problems - is coming up. Even when given calendars, once they're completed, I usually fail to look ahead, so I don't see these things until it's too late. With checklists this can be avoided, but usually these things are prioritized lower on those lists than upcoming events, and sometimes I wouldn't ever get to them anyway. I think that to solve this, I want to dedicate a part of the wall in my room to be just for post-it-notes with the names of big projects and their deadlines. That way, I can look at the wall every day, and as long as I keep it updated, big projects won't be able to sneak up on me. Lastly, I also have trouble with motivation to use my time wisely. Many times I know I should be working, but I just don't want to. I think that if I think more about why doing the work is important or meaningful to me - grades are important for the future, parents would be disappointed, this is going to be an awesome game but only if you get it done, etc. - then I would have less trouble with this. Also realizing the things I'm doing to "relax," like watching TV, doesn't actually make me feel any better, and it would be better to get the work done early and have time later when it would make me feel better because I wouldn't feel guilty since I had already accomplished something. Overall, my time management isn't as bad as I probably just made it sound, it just could improve, because I feel like I could accomplish a lot more than I currently am. I hope that I can stick to these goals and that the improvement will be apparent. This post will be about reflecting on this entire blog. I missed the post that was for reflection on the school year, so I may include some of that in this post as well, but ultimately I am planning on making another post on a bit later.
This blog has been fairly useful. It's given me time to think out what I need to do during the week since I can type out a plan and reflection of what is already done. However, the posts that I liked most were the ones not focused on reflecting on work but rather the ones where we had to watch a video or read an article and talk about what we had learned from it. It was more interesting to learn as well as making a blog post, rather than just saying, "this is what I did this week,". Overall, it has helped me keep track of what we have learned this year since I can go back and read past posts. I can also see my personal progress because of the work I've posted. I think I'm going to try to make some improvements to it over the summer so that it looks better overall next year. |
AuthorHi, I'm Abi, a DSA student who likes games, drawing, writing, and acting. Archives
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