Michael Hanscom

Enthusiastic ambivert. Geeky, liberal, friendly, curious, hopepunk; trying to be a good person. (he/him)

An Alt Text Experiment

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I’m the website administrator for Seattle Worldcon 2025, and I decided to run a bit of an experiment with the site, playing with an idea I’d been toying with for next year’s Norwescon website.

As I’ve been learning more about accessibility over the past few years, I’ve been working on transferring what I learn over to both the Norwescon and Worldcon websites as I’ve been working on them. Since alt text on images is one of the baseline requirements for good accessibility, I’ve been making sure that we have decent alt text for any images added to either site.

Of course, when working with other people’s art and images, there’s always a little question of whether the alt text I come up with would be satisfactory for the artist creating the image. So, I figured, why not see if I could more directly involve them?

When we were collecting signups for the fan tables, art show, and dealers’ room, as I was building the registration forms, whenever we asked for a logo or image to be uploaded, I added an optional field to allow the user to include alt text for the image they were uploading. I didn’t expect everyone using the form would take advantage of this — not everyone is familiar with alt text, some might not entirely understand what the field was for, and some might just find the extra field confusing — but I figured it would be worth a shot to see what happened.

Screenshot of a section of a website form. On the left is an option to upload a logo image, on the right is a text box asking for alt text. The prompt reads, 'A brief description of the image to support our Blind and low vision members. If no alt text is provided, '[display name] logo' will be used.' The field is limited to 1000 characters.
The logo upload field and associated alt text entry field for the art show application. The fan table and dealers’ room applications used very similar language.

Without showing how many of each type of application Worldcon received (because I don’t know if our Exhibits department would want that publicized beyond the “more than we have spots for” for each category that they’ve already said), here’s a breakdown of the percentages of each application type that included a logo image, and how many of those included alt text.

Area Submitted Logo Submitted Alt Text for Logo
Fan Tables 77.55% 63.16%
Dealers’ Room 99.60% 72.98%
Art Show 79.89% 87.05%
“Submitted Logo” is the percentage of applications that included a logo image. “Submitted Alt Text” is the percentage of submitted logos that included alt text.

As far as this goes, I’d say it was a pretty successful experiment, with between 63% and 87% of submitted images including alt text that we could then copy and paste into the website backend and code as we built the pages that used them, both saving us time and effort and ensuring that the alt text was what the people filling out the form would want it to be. Not bad at all!

Of course, simply having alt text is only part of the equation. The next question is how good is the submitted alt text?

Not surprisingly, it’s a bit all over the place. Some were very simple and straightforward, with just a business name, or the name with “logo” appended. Some described the logo in varying levels of detail. And some went far beyond just describing the logo, occasionally including information better suited other fields on the form that asked for a promotional description of the business, organization, or artist. That said, there were very few instances where I considered the submitted text to be unusable for its intended purpose.

Later on when I have more time, I might dive a bit more into the submissions to do a more detailed analysis of the quality of the submitted alt text. But for now, I’m quite satisfied with how this worked out. I fully intend on doing this for Norwescon’s website next year and onward, and would recommend that other conventions (and other organizations or businesses) that accept user image uploads to also allow users to provide their own alt text.

In the meantime, feel free to check out the final results of this experiment on Worldcon’s Art Show, Dealers’ Room, and Fan Table pages…and if any of this inspires you to come to Worldcon (if you’re not already planning to), stop by my presentation on digital accessibility for conventions (currently scheduled for )!

Weekly Notes: June 23–29, 2025

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  • ♿️ Summer quarter has begun, so work has slowed down a little bit, but that means it’s time to get caught up on the stuff that got pushed back during the run-up to commencement. Should be able to get a fair amount of progress on various projects over the coming weeks.

  • 🚀 I got my draft schedule for Worldcon this week. I’ll be giving a presentation on digital accessibility for conventions, plus participating on two panels; one on the future of education technology, and one on the history of Norwescon. Looking forward to all of them!

🔗 Linking

  • Christopher Bonanos in Curbed: Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign Logo Looked Nothing Like a Campaign Logo: “Nobody would credit Zohran Mamdani’s campaign graphics for his win, but they were, as was his campaign, like nothing else in politics. […] What a Mamdani graphic doesn’t look like, particularly, is a standard campaign logo.”

  • Louie Mantia: Rose-Gold-Tinted Liquid Glasses: “In a way, one could say Liquid Glass is like a new version of Aqua. It has reflective properties reminiscent of that. One could also say it’s an evolution of whatever iOS 7 was, leaning into the frosted panels and bright accent colors. But whatever Liquid Glass seems to be, it isn’t what many of us were hoping for.”

  • Emma Roth at The Verge: The BBC is launching a paywall in the US: “The BBC wants to make people in the US pay for its content. The public broadcaster announced on Thursday that it will start offering US-based users an $8.99 per month (or $49.99 per year) subscription for “unlimited” access to news stories, feature reports, and the BBC News channel livestream.”

  • Luke Winkie at Slate: Zohran Mamdani Cracked a Code That’s Long Baffled Democrats: “The Democratic nominee for NYC mayor displayed a rare combination of his own moral clarity and a willingness to engage with a specific strain of internet leftism.”

  • Carsten Frauenheim at IFixIt: Torx Plus: The High-Tech Screw Hiding in Our Gadgets: “It’s hard to keep track of all the different types of screws, fasteners, bolts, bits, and bobs that hold our lives together, from our fridges and phones to cars and planes. If you’ve ever poked around inside a gadget, you’ve probably come face-to-face with a 6-lobed, star-shaped screw. ¶ That’s Torx. It and its new, high-tech cousin, Torx Plus, are the current kings of the screw hill. But what are they, and what makes them so special?”

My (Draft) Worldcon Schedule

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The Seattle Worldcon 2025 logo and a group of cartoon characters in retrofuturistic clothing against a blue and gold background.

I have my (draft) paneling schedule for Worldcon! While there’s always the possibility that things may shift a bit between now and August, at the moment, I’m giving one solo presentation and will be a panelist on two panels.

Here’s the lineup:

The future of education technology

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Adaptive online learning, AI assisted classrooms, virtual reality schools … Things that used to be just science fiction are now science fact. How is education changing and what does it mean for the students?

Corey Frazier (M), Frank Catalano, Lia Holland, Mason A. Porter, Michael Hanscom

Well, as it turns out, I had a conflict come up, so I’ve had to drop this panel. This was a draft schedule, after all!

Digital Accessibility Basics for Conventions

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Conventions are getting more used to considering the physical accessibility of their hotels and convention centers, but how are we doing with digital accessibility? Ensuring that website and web applications, email marketing, and distributed documents are set up to be compatible with assistive technology keeps our disabled membership included throughout the year. Learn about the basics of document accessibility and get a grounding of what your publications and marketing volunteers should be aware of in order to make sure your convention’s materials are accessible to everyone.

Michael Hanscom (M)

Norwescon: local but not little

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Founded in 1978, Norwescon draws thousands of PNW SF/F creators and fans each Spring. But did you know… NWC grew out of a desire to bring Worldcon back to Seattle? Well we’ve finally done it, so come hear how we got here… and what’s next!

Wm Salt Hale (M), Michael Hanscom, Taylor Tomblin, Tim Bennett

Weekly Notes: June 16–22, 2025

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This is actually a week-plus-one-day, because…

  • 🚗 …we spent most of this past week traveling to visit family. We drove down to Portland and visited our respective families in the area, my wife with her mom and sister and niblings, and me, joined by my brother who flew out from the east coast, visiting with our mom. Had some good and necessary discussions with mom, and it was nice to be able to have both of us there visiting her at the same time. And since we drove back home today, it didn’t really make sense to back-date this post by a day just to keep it as a Sunday evening thing.

📸 Photos

Black and white image of a gravestone that just says Batman.
My wife’s mom lives near a cemetery, and it’s a nice place to go for walks. This gravestone makes me laugh every time. I took a few more shots to play with.

Black and white photo of a gravestone from 1909 next to a tree.

A stone mausoleum next to rows of old gravestones with trees in the background.

Two women seen from behind walking along a path through a cemeter on a sunny day.
My wife and her mother walking through the cemetery.

A light brown coyote lying in grass with its nose tucked under its forepaw.
There are a couple local coyotes that regularly run along a path behind my mom’s apartment; this one decided to take an afternoon nap not far outside mom’s window.

My wife, me, and my brother, all crouched on either side of my mom in her motorized chair in front of a human-made lake.
My wife, me, and my brother with mom after dinner on the last night of our visit.

📚 Reading

Finished a Star Trek novel, Dafydd ab Hugh’s Balance of Power, and started Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel Pyramids.

🔗 Linking

Balance of Power by Dafydd Ab Hugh

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Book 33 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️

This is the third book I’ve read by Ab Hugh, and the third to get two stars. It’s obviously supposed to be comedic, but isn’t funny (the conceit of a Ferengi who speaks entirely like it’s “talk like a pirate day” may be hilarious to some; to me, it was increasingly annoying), there are numerous typos and inconsistencies, and it was just a slog. Not looking forward to when I get to more by this author (though I’ll read them, because I’m a stubborn Trek completist).

Me holding Balance of Power

Weekly Notes: June 9–15, 2025

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  • 🎓 This week was commencement week for Highline College! This year, for the first time, we held commencement at the Emerald Downs horse racing facility, and while there were the occasional minor hiccups you might expect with any first-time venue experience, overall, I think it went really well. Hopefully the post-commencement feedback we get is generally in agreement, because I liked this much better than using the local stadium. (Still not as nice as on-campus, but that presents its own set of logistical headaches.)
  • 🇺🇸 Saturday was the No Kings protest, and from my perspective and all the reports I’ve seen since, it went really well, both locally and nationally. Upwards of 70,000 participants in the Seattle Capitol Hill rally and march to the Seattle Center that we went to, with no agitators, no property damage, and virtually nonexistent police presence (I didn’t see any until just before the march reached the Seattle Center, when there were four in regular day wear casually chatting with people walking by, and just as we were leaving, we did see a group of 10 or so bike cops staged in a side street). It felt good. And we need to keep doing this.

📸 Photos

Wide panoramic shot of the Seattle Center's International Fountain crowded with post-march protesters, with the Space Needle in the background under a blue sky with fluffy white clouds.
People relaxing at the Seattle Center at the conclusion of the march.

Seen from behind, a marcher holds up a large piece of cardboard with the IKEA logo.
It always amuses me when people only decorate one side of their cardboard, because it looks like they’re somewhat confused about their messaging.

A marcher in a crowd holding up a sign that says, "hot girls hate fascists".
This one, seen at the start of the march, made me laugh.

Wide shot of a lot of people wearing graduation robes and caps standing on paths between green hedges.
Students, staff, and faculty, lining up for the commencement processional.

An AV control room with three people watching lots of banks of monitors, most of which are showing an image of a graduation speaker at a podium with captions at the bottom of the image.
Since I’m part of the behind-the-scenes tech team (specifically for me, making sure captioning works properly), this was my view of the ceremony. Not a bad way to do it at all!

An AV control board with lots of banks of brightly colored and lit buttons, with a silver t-shaped control lever that looks suspiciously like the one used during the Death Star's firing sequence….
Unfortunately, since all of this equipment was actually in use, I couldn’t actually pretend I was firing the Death Star. (The shot of the Death Star weapon control lever being moved used a Grass Valley 1600 video switcher, specifically, one from KCET, Los Angeles’s PBS station.)

📚 Reading

Read Clarkesworld Issue 225 and the first issue of Heavy Metal magazine’s relaunch.

🔗 Linking

  • Sheena Goodyear at CBC Radio: Every year, folks travel from far and wide watch this giant pencil get sharpened: “Once a year, the massive piece of pop art becomes an interactive community art installation. Hundreds — or sometimes even thousands — of people make their way to Higgins’ house in Minneapolis to watch the giant pencil get sharpened with a giant pencil sharpener.”
  • Jack Tamisiea at Science: Cockatoos have learned to operate drinking fountains in Australia: “Every cockatoo exhibited slight variations in its plan of attack. But the general strategy was the same: Each placed one or both of its feet on the fountain’s twist handle, then lowered its weight to twist the handle clockwise and prevent it from springing back up. As the parrots slurped water from the bubbling spout, their sharp beaks often left behind chew marks on the fountain’s rubber top.”
  • RSSRSSRSSRSS: Combine multiple RSS feeds into one unified feed.
  • Nikki Mccann Ramirez, Naomi Lachance, Asawin Suebsaeng, Andrew Perez, and Stephen Rodrick at Rolling Stone: Trump’s Military Birthday Parade Was A Gross Failure: “An aerial parade of historic military aircraft flew above the National Mall, traversing a course from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Memorial that — despite clear anticipation of crowds by event organizers — was more empty field and food truck line than crowd.”
  • Doug Landry on X (but this is a ThreadReader link): I just got back from the Trump parade and I have to say it was legitimately the worst executed mass attendance event I’ve ever seen. The full thread is worth reading for some seriously good schadenfreude.
  • Nataliya Kosmyna, Eugene Hauptmann, Ye Tong Yuan, Jessica Situ, Xian-Hao Liao, Ashly Vivian Beresnitzky, Iris Braunstein, Pattie Maes at Cornell University: Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task: “While LLMs offer immediate convenience, our findings highlight potential cognitive costs. Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI’s role in learning.”

Heavy Metal 001

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Book 32 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you know much of anything about Heavy Metal, you know what to expect with this relaunch of the long-running comic anthology series. Sci-fi/fantasy/horror comics and art (often of the “muscle bound men and women wearing a whole lot of not very much no matter how impractical that might be” variety, of course). As the relaunch issue, this also has several short essays about the history of the magazine and some of the artists who have been involved, particularly Greg Hildebrandt, who died between painting the cover (of the edition I have) and when it was published. Though I was never a subscriber, I’d found the occasional issue, and certainly saw the movie (and have had it in my collection for years, even if it’s not a regular watch), and it’s good to know that the magazine is still going, and that it’s still exactly what your inner ’80s adolescent has been looking for.

Me holding Heavy Metal relaunch issue 1

Weekly Notes: June 2–8, 2025

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  • ♿️🇺🇸 Work this week was something of a study in contrasts, whipsawing between celebrating our students at end-of-the-year celebrations and preparing for commencement, and getting news of two major attacks on disability rights and accessibility:
    • The American Council on Education has sent a letter (PDF link) to the Office of Management and Budget asking that implementation of last year’s Title II updates be delayed. The reasoning is the usual “but it’s too hard/expensive” whining from people who don’t want to do even the bare minimum of work to support disabled communities; the surprise is who the letter is coming from and being signed by. This has prompted a lot of uproar in the higher education accessibility communities, and we’re just getting started.
    • The Department of Energy is trying to fast-track rolling back the regulations that require new construction to be made accessible. This would be a huge blow to accessibility, and because of how they’re doing this, comments can only be submitted until June 16 (next Monday).
  • 🤓 On Saturday, we went down to the Kent Nerd Party, something of a local mini-convention in the historic downtown area. We were only there for a little over an hour (it being the first day of a two-day spring heatwave, with temperatures in the mid- to high-80s), but it was fun to see costumes, geek-centric street booths, a small Lego museum with some really impressive creations, and a few friends that we happened to run into.

📸 Photos

24 small Lego dioramas featuring well-known artists and their work, with cards below explaining which artist each diorama represents.
Seen at the Lego display at the Kent Nerd Party. My wife and I could identify most of these little artist dioramas without needing to reference the clue cards beneath.

A large size Lego person sitting in a lawn chair next to a plant with another figure emerging from it, both next to a poster for the classic sci-fi horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I really appreciated this nod to classic sci-fi horror. Figured it out before I noticed the poster to the side!

Small inclusive, bi, and trans pride flags displayed in the grass by a paved walkway.
Nice to see Pride flags set out across campus.

A metal tray with nine snacks made up of stacked lettuce, meat patty, tomato slice, and pickle…and nothing else.
There’s an old Bloom County comic where Milo goes into a Burger King and orders a Whopper, “hold the bun”. So I was very amused to see a tray of burgers, sans bun, among the food options at a catered event on campus this week. For somewhere around four decades, I’d only ever known this as a comic strip gag, but apparently it’s a real thing?

📚 Reading

🔗 Linking

  • S. Baum at Erin in the Morning: Defying DeSantis, Florida Pride Marchers Light Up Jacksonville Bridge with Rainbow Colors. It’s good to remember that as horrible as Florida the state is being right now, there are still a lot of people there that don’t agree with what their local government is doing, and are willing to make that known.
  • John Scalzi: Well, CAN You Prove You’re a US Citizen?: “How many US citizens could, in fact, prove that they are US citizens at the drop of the hat? Leave aside for the moment the absolutely correct argument that it should not be incumbent on any of us to do so, and focus on this particular question. Can you, directly and/or indirectly, show that you have citizenship here in the US?”
  • Amanda Guinzburg: Diabolus Ex Machina: “Presented to you in the form of unedited screenshots, the following is a ‘conversation’ I had with Chat GPT upon asking whether it could help me choose several of my own essays to link in a query letter I intended to send to an agent. ¶ What ultimately transpired is the closest thing to a personal episode of Black Mirror I hope to experience in this lifetime.”
  • Nathalie Graham at Seattle Met: A Midsummer Nightmare: “According to performers and volunteers interviewed for this story, something is rotten in the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire: Poor labor conditions, bad actors, and business-over-people decisions by the board of directors are sapping the Renaissance faire of its magic.” Content warning: Contains reports of sexual and domestic abuse. Ammie, the first person interviewed in the article, is an acquaintance/friend from the Norwescon and SeaGoth communities, so I’d heard bits and pieces of her story over time; the other stories are new to me.
  • Sen. Patty Murray in the Seattle Times: Shut up and be quiet? No thanks: “Make yourself heard however you can. Maybe that’s a social media post or maybe it’s organizing thousands of parents to speak up for funding you care about. Big or small, it all makes a difference and it all adds up.”

The Vorkosigan Saga

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And that’s it — this morning, I finished off Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga. A little under two years (non-consecutively; many other books have been read in between these) of the adventures of Miles Vorkosigan and his family, friends, and enemies.

A complete collection of Vorkosigan saga novels in mass market paperback, arranged in internal chronological order.

This was neither planned nor expected. I started because I’m reading my way through all the Hugo Best Novel winners, and several of the Vorkosigan books are on that list, I continued because even though neither romance nor military sci-fi are genres I usually go for, the books are just so good that they pulled me in. (And, well, I don’t like coming into a series midway through if I can help it, so I had to read the books that were earlier or in between the Hugo winners.)

Bujold’s characters are wonderfully realized. Not always heroes or even particularly heroic (and sometimes rather disturbing), but always very real. The books are funny — I wouldn’t really call any of them comedies, but they are frequently comedic. And the world building (over multiple worlds scattered across a wormhole-connected galaxy) is great, with cultures that are obviously related while also being very separate and distinct.

All in all, while I certainly didn’t expect this when I started, this has become a favorite series, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what Bujold does in a fantasy world, as I head into her World of the Five Gods series (of which the second, Paladin of Souls, is the next Hugo Best Novel book on my list). (It’s a good sign that both the Vorkosigan Saga and the World of the Five Gods series have won Best Series Hugos….)