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Re: High Volume Alt Text

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Feb 7, 2015 12:14AM

From our work, we've determined that in-house editors who a) know the
subject matter, and b) know how to write (grin), are the best candidates for
this type of Alt-text.

You might not get the quality you need from most outsourced contractors.
In academic publications, the graphics aren't garden-variety photos of this
or that. Rather, they tend to be highly detailed portrayals of specific
concepts covered in the textbook, such as statistical charts and complex
illustrations. An added plus is if they have teaching skills, or the ability
to succinctly describe complex concepts to students.

We encourage our clients to develop their own stable of in-house editors (or
even freelancers) to become the "Alt-Text editors" of their materials.

--Bevi Chagnon


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Yamanishi, Evan
Sent: Friday, February 6, 2015 4:59 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] High Volume Alt Text

I'm looking for vendors to write alternative text for the images in all of
our college products, and I thought the list might have some recommendations
for reliable vendors for this sort of work. The goal is to have multiple
options to spread out the work (one book can have >2000 images) and to
ensure quality alt text for complex subjects since we offer books for
everything from introductory biology to upper-level economics.

Most of the other components (reading order, tag mapping, links,
interactives, metadata, etc.) are being handled in-house, but there's no
getting around the scope of the alt text component.

Thanks,
Evan

Evan Yamanishi
Media Accessibility Specialist
W. W. Norton & Company
500 5Th Avenue
New York, NY 10110