Hi! I just was randomly thinking about this. I am sighted, but I wondered how blind folks interact with iNat?
In particular, how many users are blind? Are there things iNat could do to make it easier for blind folks to observe/id acoustic observations?
there’s a relevant discussion here https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/inaturalist-still-inaccessible-to-screen-reader-users/38033/
@schizoform Hi! I’m the only blind user I know of, but I’d be shocked if there weren’t others out there. If you look at my profile you’ll see I do make a lot of audio IDs. Screen reader accessibility with Inat is rather spotty, and you can read the linked discussion if you want to go down the rabbithole. For now though, my main gripe is that the Identify Mode is completely inaccessible. In order to make my audio IDs, I search for a species and/or a location in the Explore tab, filter by sounds, and click through them all. It’s a bit tedious, but I enjoy it enough that I still go and do it.
One thing I’d love to know is exactly what advantages the Identify Mode has over that method. Perhaps you can enlighten me? It would help me convey to the Inat team exactly what functionality I’m missing out on, and maybe I can suggest ways to make it
I use the identify mode sometimes, but it’s not my primary. It’s designed to make it easier to ID lots of things quickly. In particular there are hotkeys to let you go through things faster. I have very little insight into how this might compare for sighted vs blind users. I wonder if there’s a good way for blind users to talk to one another and share tips and tricks and feature requests?
TBH I think the audio IDs are one of the weaker parts of the iNat interface, so I think y’all could have a huge impact here.
I know there are badged groups for neurodivergent and for queer inaturalists – I wonder if a badge for blind iNatters might be helpful for finding one another?
One difference is that it is easier to move between observations in the Identify mode than in the Explore tab.
If you are a sighted person using the standard interface, in the Explore tab, you have to open each observation on the page and then return to the Explore page when you are done. Unless you open each observation in a new tab, you will often lose the place where you were on the page and you will have to scroll through to find the last observation you looked at. (I don’t know how the page locations and scrolling work with a screen reader – maybe this aspect is less of a problem.)
In the Identify tab, the observations are viewed as a pop-up window and you can use arrow keys to move from one observation to the next.
In Identify mode there are also keyboard shortcuts for adding annotations, marking the observation as reviewed or as not wild, or agreeing with the current ID. Many of us find this ergonomically better than using the mouse or touchpad to select the items.
Edit: Another important difference is that there are a lot more filtering options available in Identify mode. Most of these are for annotations, which are probably of limited relevance for audio observations. But one function that is really helpful is the ability to exclude observations you have reviewed (i.e., observations you have already identified plus any you have marked as “reviewed”).
It is possible to exclude reviewed observations on the Explore page, but this requires manually altering the URL, which is not particularly convenient.
Thanks for this. The scrolling is indeed a problem for me on the Explore tab, but altering the URL might be a way around this. Can you tell me how to do this?
Audio IDs are weak, in part because there is no tutorial telling people how to make their uploads most valuable. For example, a very important thing is to describe in words, as best as possible, what sound you’re after. This way, I can give someone an instant ID of a species in the midst of a large bird, frog, or insect chorus. Otherwise I have to leave the ID as broad and list all the species I hear, asking which one they want the observation to be focused on.
I don’t know of any badge for blind users. How would this be created?
Wow, what a wonderful post! I work for a non-profit that supports the blind community where I live (upstate NY) and in my experience, the world does far too little to support differently abled people. It’s good to read in the link provided by @bouteloua that iNat is actively working to improve the app for blind users. I wonder if texture and smell, particularly in the plant world, should be added in annotations under “evidence of presence”?
I did a quick search after seeing your post and found this website:
https://theblindnaturalist.com/
Perhaps this individual would be interested in iNaturalist and/or be another good resource for making it more accessible.
Thank you @schizoform for your thoughtful post.
I don’t think the URL manipulation will help with the scrolling issue.
If you want to exclude observations that you have already ID’d from the search results, you can add the text &reviewed=false to the end of the URL.
What @schizoform was referring to as a “badge” is an icon that is added to your observations if you have joined a project. (Are project pages accessible for screen readers?) Some projects are focused on particular topics, but other projects are meant to enable users with similar interests or needs to connect with one another.
Thanks for the URL tip! I presume it would, in fact, help with the scrolling issue, as if I lose my place I can refresh the page and the reviewed observations will disappear.
Project pages should be accessible, although I’m the best with projects yet. I’ll have a look around though.
Thanks for that link by the way! Not sure I ever knew of it.
You’re welcome! (-:
I agree that notes can be really helpful for IDers. However, I’m very much a novice at recognizing birdsong and sometimes I have no idea whether all the sounds in a recording are from the same bird or not. So a lack of notes can indicate an inability to make sense of what one heard (although typically in such cases I will leave a note apologizing profusely for my cluelessness and thanking the IDers in advance for any assistance they can provide in sorting it out).
If it is any consolation, the challenge of figuring out what organism the observer is interested in is not unique to audio observations. It happens with photos, too, albeit perhaps not quite as often.
This also applies to photos: many new users do not know how to take good photos that are useful for IDers. However, I imagine the problem is more acute for audio files. I suspect people are on average better equipped to take OK photos and have more knowledge how to edit/crop those photos when compared with audio.
I don’t listen to audio files very frequently on iNat, but one thing that I have found to be a problem is that the volume can vary substantially from one observation to the next. Often I end up having to adjust the volume settings on my notebook because the volume control on iNat’s audio player doesn’t have enough range. (And inevitably a very quiet recording will be followed by a loud one blasting out because I still have the volume turned way up). I believe there is an open feature request for normalizing audio playback. Would something like this be useful for you?
(I have one deaf ear and never listen to audio obs)
Is there already a project for Audio IDs ?
If not, even if there is - I would suggest starting one.
Then you can write journal posts. Link up with observers and identifiers of audio. Spell out how to observe, so you can get a good ID.
iNat goes better as a team.
Normalizing playback would be enormously helpful.
There is a project Audio Observations from Around the World that collects, as the name suggests, audio observations from around the world. I’m not sure whether or not it has all the audio observations on iNat or not. It’s a traditional project, so observations need to be added manually (which somebody diligently does each time I upload a sound).
That project creator is RIP
But there are 3 managers. Maybe chat to them about a spin off project - Audio for Blind Identifiers. It would be informative to draw together interested iNatters.
We’ve had so many gripes on here about people “blindly agreeing” with IDs, I thought that’s what this post was going to be about. We probably need a different word for what we complain about.
If I ever make an audio observation, I will try to figure out how to make that adjustment. I can do it on Audacity on my laptop, but some of the audio apps for phones do not make that functionality easy to find.
Not blind but the audio function on iNat is super slept on. So many recordingss go straight into the Unknown pool due to mainly new users not putting in a very basic ID on their observations. It’s kinda frustratingly repetitive sometimes, but I’m always pleasantly surprised when I come across a buried cicada song. :)
When I make audio observations on the iOS Inat app, the playback is just fine. Just FYI.