BlogCarnival.com says they don't allow blind people and they don't care if that's offensive

I’m putting on my advocacy hat today. I’m steamed, so that cap might be riding a little cockeyed right now.

Any regular reader knows that a royal thorn in my side is inaccessible CAPTCHA. That is initially what this post is about, but moreover, it is about web sites that turn their nose at providing accessibility.

I recently posted about the
Assistive Technology Blog Carnival,
Which at first used a widget to allow user submissions via a site called
Blog Carnival.
(That site hereafter is referred to as BC).

However, it was soon discovered that to submit a post via the BC site, users were required to complete a CAPTCHA with no accessibility feature. Lon, the host of the Assistive Technology Carnival, promptly removed that widget as soon as he learned about the inaccessibility of the BC site. Users can still submit to the carnival through comments on the AT Carnival site linked above, or via an email to Lon, whose email address is posted on the page.

Lon, myself and a few others have taken the issue up with the BC site and written letters asking for the site to consider using accessible CAPTCHA technology which would allow blind users to access their site. These letters have included suggestions of accessible CAPTCHA solutions such as
RECAPTCHA.
Unfortunately, nobody has received a response. Until today, when I read that T. Reid, of the
Reid My Mind blog
Wrote about the response he got from BC.

I’ve taken the liberty of copying the text of the infuriatingly smug letter from a woman named Denise at the BC site. (See below).

After reading her letter, please make a choice and do something proactive on behalf of people with disabilities. Write an email to the BC site and express concern for providing an accessible web environment for all. The email address for contacting Denise is:
Support@BlogCarnival.com
If you’ve written a letter to BC already, then write again. Let them hear from you that the stance BC is officially taking is just wrong.

I coined a phrase several years ago: “If you’re not including somebody, then you are excluding them.” From the letter Denise wrote, it is very ovvious that BC is making a choice to exclude members of the blind community.

Here is the letter he received:
From: "BlogCarnival Support"
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 3:12 PM
Subject: Re: Blog Carnival Refuses to admit the blind community

Thomas -

Thanks for your email about CAPTCHA and about the visually impaired community.

Unfortunately, Blog Carnival doesn’t have plans at this time to implement CAPTCHA. We are considering redesigns of the site, but we do not have a timeline for that. We will keep CAPTCHA in mind as we look at redesign options.

Good luck with your efforts to make the web a better place!

Yours,

Denise
Support@BlogCarnival.com


His response was:

—– Original Message —–
To: "BlogCarnival Support"
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: Blog Carnival Refuses to admit the blind community

Denise,

Thanks for the response.

You said,"Unfortunately, Blog Carnival doesn’t have plans at this time to implement CAPTCHA."

By this I am assuming you mean no plans to introduce alternative CAPTCHA solutions. That’s really too bad. Blog Carnival is missing out on an opportunity to make a statement not only to those with visual impairments, but the entire disability community. The statement, "Your participation is important to us."

I guess there is the possibility of an alternative statement based on the future redesign.

Based on this response, I personally will forgo from participating in carnivals that use BC. I will continue to make others aware of the official statement.

Feel free to let me know if there are any changes in Blog Carnival’s position on visual only CAPTCHA.

Respectfully,
T.Reid


What are you waiting for? Go send that email to Denise at BlogCarnival.com!

Innovations of iPhone should lead to greater overall web accessibility

In June of last year, I wrote a post here about the
inaccessibility of Apple’s iPhone.

My biggest gripe still today about the product is that being that the iPhone uses a touchscreen, the trendy and coveted geek toy is inaccessible to anybody who has a disability and is unable to touch the screen. That includes people who are blind or have a motor impairment that limits the manual dexterity required to accomplish that task.

This leads me into an article I just came across by web development author Christopher Schmitt, wherein he states the case that
iPhone specific web development is misguided.

In this well proposed presentation, Schmitt states that there are implications for web surfing that the iPhone has forever change, and, as such, its competitors will certainly follow suit just to stay competitive. The primary point is the fact that
Web sites no longer need to design their sites specifically for a mobile device.

Schmitt argues that developers need not design web content which will only be maximized on the iPhone, but optimized for all. The crux of his presentation is centered around accessibility, not just as being the right thing to do as a good corporate citizen, but as a sound business model. Simple economics dictate that making a web site which is accessible to all makes it open to the widest audience possible. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Schmitt writes:
“Apple recently sold its first million iPhones. Yet, there are an estimated 37 million Americans with sensory and physical disability between the ages of 16 to 64.”

“If only ten percent of these 37 million people with disabilities surf the Web on an assistive technology, their numbers are 300% greater than every iPhone sold.”

However, I think the most sensible and emphatic plea for making accessibility a priority for web developers can be discerned from Schmitt’s conclusion:
“If your Web site is geared to run on assistive technologies like screen readers, hand wands , eye tracking, voice recognition, or braille displays, the odds are that you’ve opened your site up to more of an audience than the iPhone crowd.”

Again, I sincerely believe that makes perfect sense, both business-wise and doing the right thing-wise.

In light of the argument Schmitt makes, perhaps I need to not be too hard on the iPhone. While the iPhone may still be inaccessible, there are prospects that this may one day evolve with insightful use of third party applications. And, the inaccessibility of the iPhone itself may be offset by the opening of doors for greater web accessibility as a whole due to the innovation that the device has brought to the mobile phone market.

Yahoo acknowledges inaccessible content, yet still fails to innovate

Well, if this doesn’t take the cake.

I have posted on Access Ability previously about
Yahoo’s inaccessible CAPTCHA,
those distorted letters and numbers that appear in a graphic and require the user to type them into an edit field to prove there is a human on their end of the computer and not some spam robot. Screen readers like the one I use, JAWS, do not recognize these images and Yahoo has been unwilling to present an accessible solution, of which several varieties already exist on different web sites.

It is as if Yahoo is sticking their head in the sand and ignoring the mere existence of blind computer users and their need for accessible web content. Maybe that is part of the grand Yahoo master plan, just play dumb and we can offer that as our defense.

I personally know, as of today, for a fact that Yahoo can not plead ignorance. (Its not like they really could, given the public outcry and awareness that has been raised over the past few months by advocates such as Darrell Shandrow at
The Blind Access Journal
Over inaccessible CAPTCHA.)

How did I find out that Yahoo knows blind people exist? Let me explain...

I use a Yahoo mail account for email and news alerts pertaining to this blog, and while signing in to my Yahoo account this morning, I was prompted to upgrade to the “ALL-NEW Yahoo! Mail.” In the pitch, I was told that I should “Be a better pal!” This was followed by claims that “We've built a better Yahoo! Mail, so upgrade to the all-new faster and easier version,” and given a list of what was better about their new service.

This all sounds really good, but below that list was the following message in a link:
“Unfortunately the new Yahoo! Mail doesn't currently work with screen readers. Until then, please return to Yahoo! Mail Classic.”

So, Yahoo acknowledges that they recognize there are blind people using their site and products. And, this includes me, as I was being personally directed to go back to Classic mode. Furthermore, they grant that their “ALL-NEW” and “better” Yahoo doesn’t work with screen readers. And, put this all together and Yahoo is saying blind people can’t be “better pals,” at least not if Yahoo has anything to say about it.

This means that one day, if Yahoo decides to make this much ballyhooed product accessible to screen readers, it will be a retrofit used to provide a virtual on-ramp that blind people can use onto this information superhighway, instead of having built in accessibility from the beginning. I just find it disgusting that people like the developers who make these products that can be designed with accessibility from the beginning, choose not to even attempt this. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a new building must include wheelchair accessibility and only older buildings are allowed to retrofit. Why do information technologies not fall into some equal category for providing accessibility?


After this mornings experience, I have a question for Yahoo that comes to mind about their technologies. If you can detect that I am using a screen reader, and your company considers itself a leader and innovator of web content, then why in the world can the geniuses on your staff not incorporate the screen reader detection that I encountered today with your CAPTCHA to present an accessible method of human verification when you find a blind user is present?

This just gives me another reason to beat the awareness drum for the
Yahoo accessibility improvement petition.
If you have not yet signed the petition, please do so and help spread the news of this still on-going battle.