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Docs describe function limits and best practice #9114

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docs: added describe function limits & best practices
Ayush4958 Aug 24, 2026
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docs: added describe function limits & best practices
Ayush4958 Aug 24, 2026
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7 changes: 7 additions & 0 deletions contributor_docs/web_accessibility.md
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Expand Up @@ -329,3 +329,10 @@ function setup() {
The page will output:

![A p5.js canvas, followed by two lines of description: "A red heart and yellow circle over a pink background," and "Heart: A red heart in the bottom-right corner."](images/sketch-text-output3.png)

### Best Practices

When writing text for `describe()` and `describeElement()`, keep the following screen reader limitations in mind:

- **Avoid transliterations:** Text to Speech (TTS) engines cannot reliably pronounce transliterations of languages. This makes it hard for screen reader users to understand the text. We encourage sketch creators to use their native script language when writing the text for describe functions.
- **macOS VoiceOver limitations:** macOS VoiceOver ignores the HTML `lang` attribute completely. As a result, Latin script languages (Spanish, German, French, etc.) will be read with the default English voice, making it likely that words won't be pronounced correctly.