I don't think we should tell artists what they can/can't do, but I do think it would be reasonable for the New York Times to enforce that all content they host is made as accessible as reasonably possible, for some definition of that.
This could be made much more accessible by just including appropriate captions, and doing so would benefit a large part of the community.
I agree that it’s annoying for a longform article or something like documentation, but with the drawings on the sides I think it works fine for this application.
I don't have an issue with the format itself, but you're absolutely right that it's an accessibility nightmare. The worst part is that it's so easy for it not to be.
I thought maybe since there's no descriptive text alongside images, that there was probably something in the alt tags. However, the alt tags for each image are just empty quotes. For all intents and purposes this is just a blank page for anyone using a screen reader.
Hey everyone, use descriptive alt tags for your images. It takes 10 seconds and makes a big difference.
I actually really enjoyed it as a short illustrated story. If this was written as a formal NTY article, it would have been five sentences and not particularly memorable.
>"If this was written as a formal NTY article, it would have been five sentences and not particularly memorable."
Maybe an attempt should have been made to do the story justice then. Discuss where these plastic things came from, who got the idea and when? How did their use spread? And the story doesn't even contain any hint of environmental criticism.
It's an incredibly weak article, and you can tell the editors knew that because of the vague headline they created for it, meant to make people curious. If the headline said "The $0.006 'Plastic Grass' in Your Sushi Container Is Doing an Important Job" far fewer people would have clicked on the article because 'it keeps food separate' is self-evident to anybody who's ever seen it. Better yet would be "The $0.006 'Plastic Grass' in Your Sushi Container Is For Keeping Food Separate." The brief digression into the original bamboo leaf form was slightly interesting, but this article should have gone much deeper to justify itself.
Short question, Short answer with nice drawings as a bonus. Perfect and logical way to send the message and a lot of time saved for the reader. There is not need to rewrite "the brothers Karamazov ate on a sushi restaurant" for such simple question.