@ -116,15 +116,27 @@ Alt-text is an essential part of web accessibility. It has existed since the 199
The workbook of Cocklyat and Finnegan is a whole piece of code documentation dedicated to a single HTML attribute. It re-frames `alt` text as a type of poetry, and provides exercises to practice writing. Their intention is not just to allow alt-text users to be able to access visual content on the internet, but to let them feel a sense of belonging in the digital spaces. By highlighting the needs of often marginalized minorities, and giving them propper representation, documentation can activate ways of thinking that actively shape technical implementations, acknowledging both the needs of machines and programmers and users as well.
The `p5.js` library for example offers a `describe()` and `describeElement()` functions, to provide a description analogue to the `alt` text one for their visual sketches. The interactive graphics are based on the HTML `canvas` element, that instead of dealing with its contents in a semantic way as HTML does, works on pixel bases. Similar to images, these contents are not compatible with screen readers, and require a text explanation in order to render accessible what's happening on the display. Even more: while images are usually static, p5.js visuals are often in motion, and evolve through time. With `describeElement()`, developers can even be more granular in their descriptions, captioning transformations of different elements in their animations.
Documentation and technical implementations influence each others as in a feedback loop. The power of code documentation of encouraging a certain set of practices molds successive implementations, that in turn consolidate and normalize previous choices. Here technical and design decisions can create or foreclose spaces for others to participate in programming practice.
In the discussions around the development of this open source project, contributors started considering how to encourage the usage of this function. From an initial suggestion of making it a requirement in order for sketch to run, opinions settled on conveying its importance from the documentation, by adding it to the default template, and to the examples in the documentation and tutorial.
This process of course doesn't happen in a streamlined and linear fashion, but rather as a bouncing and transversal echo, reaching neighbouring contexts and other projects as well.
Inspired by Alt-text as poetry for example, I decided to write the code for the pages in my space of the Soupboat in a way that does not display images if they don't come with a propper description. An implementation aimed to slowly train and sensibilize myself.
_Code for the project pages on the soupboat. The figure with the header is added if and only if both cover and alt description are provided._
decision like these aren't really different from how a type system work, or how the syntax of a certain function is written. everything has been decided by someone. these decisions can create or claim new and safe spaces for participating to programming practice, or validate this participation
create / claim new spaces for participation, validate participation
An implementation first approach however is not always an option, and code documentation is a more adeguate surface to work with. The `p5.js` library for instance offers a `describe()` and `describeElement()` functions, to provide a description analogue to the `alt` text one for their visual sketches. The interactive graphics are based on the HTML `canvas` element, that instead of dealing with its contents in a semantic way as HTML does, works on pixel bases. Similar to images, these contents are not compatible with screen readers, and require a text explanation in order to render accessible what's happening on the display. Even more: while images are usually static, p5.js visuals are often in motion, and evolve through time. With `describeElement()`, developers can even be more granular in their descriptions, captioning transformations of different elements in their animations.
In the discussions around the development of this open source project, contributors started considering how to encourage the usage of this function. From an initial suggestion of making it a requirement in order for sketch to run, opinions settled on conveying its importance from the documentation, by adding it to the default template, and to the examples in the documentation and tutorial.
### Hello worlding
@ -176,19 +188,18 @@ In the essay, they highlight how poetry often does offer rich context and a worl
In the Screenless Office, the bureau aesthetic, with its collective imagery of characters, situations, and power dynamics, becomes a personal interaction design framework. Here the system is structured enough to articulate a complex application in a coherent, clear and legible way. And yet, the cosmology of the office remains open to contribuitions coming from elsewhere, say, another departement such as the `Canteen of the Screenless Office` inaugurated during a workshop with Howell at XPUB, with all its peculiar set of characters, aesthetics and documentation practices.
!!! note "si16 api docstrings"
Our first project in XPUB was Special Issue 16: a collective exploration of natural language processing with a vernacular turn. It was published as an API, offering several functions to users to play with strings and texts.
!!! placeholder "si16 api docstrings"
Our first project in XPUB was Special Issue 16: a collective exploration of natural language processing with a vernacular turn. It was published as an API, offering several functions to users to play with strings and texts.
### aesthetic programming as a bridge between software studies and creative coding
!!! note "where to put"
could this paragraph go in the part 1 ?
_Aesthetic Programming - A Handbook of Software Studies_, by Winnie Soon and Geoff Cox is an example on how to weave together these different discourses. The book explains the basic concepts of programming: it starts from variables and loops, to arrive at more complex topics such as machine learning or speech recognition. The technical curriculum offered is in line with other similar resources that target non-engineers. What's different here is a commitment to critically enquiry themes such as colonialism, racism, gender and sexuality, capitalism and class, and how are they embedded in code.
Soon and Cox prepared these lessons for students enrolled in a design institution, and curated the pubblication addressing a public somehow familiar with the discourses around software studies. Thanks to the vantage point of writing documentation for beginners, they could be super explicit and go all out with generous amount of references.
