Visual Verification: Registration Assistance and Other Progress with Del.icio.us

It would seem that our accessibility concerns with the registration process, and possibly other areas, at Del.icio.us are now being taken more seriously subsequent to my public posting of accessibility related issues on the Yahoo! property’s development mailing list.

Nick Nguyen, Del.icio.us Product Manager, indicates that the following steps will be taken to improve accessibility:

  1. While an audio CAPTCHA is under development, a direct link to the support team will be provided on the registration page. This has already been accomplished.
  2. The del.icio.us team, in conjunction with the company’s in-house accessibility people, will work to ensure not only better access to the registration process, but also improved accessibility of the browser extensions, plugins and the web site.
  3. Blind and visually impaired people will be invited to participate in the beta process for the new web site. Send an e-mail directly to Nick Nguyen at nick (at) yahoo-inc dot com to get involved.

We thank Nick Nguyen and Bjoern Fritzsche at Yahoo! for their consideration of our accessibility concerns and their serious, thoughtful responses.

Visual Verification: Yahoo! Removes Manual Form Facilitating Blind User Registration

As all of us know, the folks at Yahoo! do not permit blind people to independently sign up for the company’s services. Instead, a link to a form was provided, whereby a representative would, presumably, manually assist a blind person with the registration process. While some people received this help once in awhile, it was largely ineffective, tantamount to providing no assistance at all. It seems, unfortunately, that there has been a step made in the wrong direction. Yahoo!’s registration page no longer includes the special form made available for the purpose of accomodating us. We also note that the registration page for del.icio.us also continues not to allow us to sign up solely based on our physical lack of eye sight.

Now, more than ever, it is absolutely critical that we motivate as many Internet users as possible to sign the Yahoo! Accessibility Improvement Petition urging the company’s web development team to promptly implement a CAPTCHA solution that reasonably accomodates blind and visually impaired humans.

Visual Verification: J.C. Hutchins of the 7th Son Podcast Steps Up to the Plate

Last night, I began listening to J.C. Hutchins’ 7th Son podcast novel. Though not perfect, the Apple hosted web platform on which the site is hosted is mostly accessible enough to allow participation by blind listeners. Right now, however, there is one unfortunate exception. Features such as the ability to post comments are protected by a visual CAPTCHA that does not deliver a reasonable accomodation that would afford blind and visually impaired people the ability to participate.

In Need a hand, re: CAPTCHA compliance, J.C. Hutchins promises to contact Apple concerning this issue. I will be quite interested to know their response, if any, on this matter. I also thank J.C. for his prompt willingness to take this bull by the horns and work toward a resolution. Of course, the podcast is a great listen! It is full of clones, conspiracies, memory duplication and other similar themes I enjoy reading about in science fiction novels.

Invitation to Join the Blind Access Journal Mailing List

All Blind Access Journal readers are cordially invited and encouraged to join our brand new mailing list! We will, of course, discuss issues related to all things accessibility, including the following topic areas:

  • Approaches to accessibility advocacy and their effectiveness.
  • Coordination of Blind Access Journal and other advocacy initiatives.
  • Collect and report accessibility issues in need of evangelism.
  • Constructively work with all companies and individuals who are doing the right thing with respect to accessibility!

This new mailing list is not intended as a resource for technical support. There are many other excellent blindness related lists for that purpose.

If you would like to subscribe to the blind-access mailing list, please send a blank message to blind-access-request@lists.blindaccessjournal.com with the word subscribe in the subject field. Please feel free to visit the blind-access list home page to view archives or modify your participation in the group. Your active participation is both appreciated and encouraged.

The Heart of Accessibility Evangelism

I think we all recognize that, in many cases, there simply is not a strong bottom-line business reason for companies (either assistive technology or mainstream) to work hard on making sure their technologies function in ways that are in the best interests of all users, including those of us whom happen to be blind. There are, thus, only two major levers available to us in our advocacy efforts. The first involves the fact that, in our society, accessibility is simply the right thing to do. This approach involves the “heart” of accessibility evangelism. The second approach involves making a business case for accessibility based on the application or presumed applicability of one or more disability rights laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act or Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act. In this rather rough approach, accessibility is ultimately forced as an alternative that is less expensive than continuing to ignore our needs.

In the case of screen readers, the economic incentive is simply to ensure the product works with Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office and the Windows operating system. Any additional capabilities, especially with respect to custom job related applications like Salesforce.com and Siebel, is viewed as icing on the cake. Precious little effort is expended on the part of assistive technology companies to ensure the usability of many customer relationship management (CRM) and other similarly critical application infrastructures required in today’s workplaces. How many jobs do you know about where use of e-mail, spreadsheets, web browsing and word processing are all that’s required in order for a qualified employee to conduct the duties of the position?

Most mainstream technology companies claim there’s little or no real business incentive to make their products and services accessible to us. After all, blind people represent less than a percent of the world’s population and there’s just not enough money in it for companies to justify the expense. Only the possibility of legal action or the presumed applicability of some Federal laws make the expense of accessibility less than the potential loss of business from government agencies.

As we all can see, the current state of affairs remains bleak. It has been this way for a long time now, yet the problem may accelerate due to the ever-widening gap between the capabilities of increasingly sophisticated and visually oriented mainstream technologies with respect to the rather limited nature of current screen reading technology for the blind. My apologies if this offends, but it is, ultimately, the truth against which I would invite any credible challenge.

As we continue to advocate for mainstream technology companies to reasonably accomodate our needs for equal access to the technologies in our daily lives, on the job and in the classroom, we must also simultaneously advocate for our assistive technology companies to focus on innovation, rolling out screen readers that can meet the challenge of the current and future world of technology, much of which continues to be developed by people who have absolutely no inclination toward accomodating us. It is wonderful when assistive technology and the mainstream computer industry can work together, meeting one another halfway in order to provide access, but the days of screen reader developers relying on this approach have been numbered for quite sometime in all but a precious few cases.

As we insist on innovation which will permit us to continue learning and making a living, we are going to have to devise new methods of accessibility advocacy. Our approaches must convince the decision-makers in the technology industry that at least one of the following statements is true:

  1. Conscience dictates that delivering accessibility is simply the “right thing” to do.
  2. The presence or absence of accessible technology often makes the difference between whether or not a blind person is able to fill a particular position in a company or take advantage of an educational opportunity.
  3. It is better to help blind people than it is to hurt, ignore or otherwise leave us out in the cold.
  4. Accessibility is a good thing to do from a media or public relations perspective.
  5. Accessibility can represent an “interesting” project to undertake from a development point of view.
  6. A small increase in the customer base will result when products and services are made accessible to blind computer users.
  7. Blind customers of companies who take the effort and time to address our needs tend to be among the most loyal portion of the company’s overall customer base.
  8. Sighted people who care about what happens to their blind colleagues, friends and relatives may prefer doing business with companies who do the “right thing” with respect to accessibility.
  9. Religion may indirectly dictate that blind people should be afforded equal access to information.
  10. The laws in several nations of the world directly or indirectly mandate a certain level of accessibility for people with disabilities.

It is important to note that only four of the items (customer loyalty, increased customer numbers, laws and public relations) on this “accessibility evangelism top ten” list can be said to relate directly to business considerations. The rest relate to the heart. What does a person believe to be the “right thing” to do with respect to their emotional make up as well as their logical mind? Should we devise ways to shame those who would ignore us into doing the right thing? Would a person ignore the needs of their spouse, relative, close friend or colleague should they become blind? How would such a person want to see their blind spouse treated? Wouldn’t they insist on reasonable accomodations? Should we place a bit more emphasis on the “heart” of accessibility evangelism? Your thoughts are welcome as always in the form of a comment to this article.

Visual Verification: Request of NFB to Officially Support CAPTCHA Accessibility Initiatives

The following letter was composed and sent to Dr. Marc Maurer, President, National Federation of the Blind, on July 28, 2007. It has been five weeks now. We continue to await a response from the organization concerning their official position and willingness to dedicate additional resources to these critical accessibility concerns.

July 28, 2007 

Dear Dr. Maurer:

My name is Darrell Shandrow.  You and I met a number of times at NFB national conventions and the National Center for the Blind.  I am an online accessibility evangelist, operating a blog known as Blind Access Journal.  It can be found at http://www.blindaccessjournal.com.  My purpose for writing this letter is to ask you to direct some of the resources of the National Federation of the Blind toward effectively advocating equal accessibility of CAPTCHA (visual verification) and other multifactor authentication systems for the blind and visually impaired.   

In CAPTCHA and some hardware based multifactor authentication schemes, a string of distorted characters is presented visually, and entry of those characters into an edit field is required in order to be granted access to a protected system.  The purpose of CAPTCHA is to differentiate between a script or other automated computer program designed to abuse a resource and a real human being who desires legitimate access.  Visual multifactor authentication schemes provide a second level of security beyond the traditional username and password.  Pictures can’t be interpreted or automatically conveyed using Braille or speech access devices and many hardware security keys still do not provide any alternative output mechanisms.  Until an accessible alternative is made available, people with vision loss can’t see the code to be entered into the box to be granted admission.  

There now exists a number of techniques to reasonably accomodate CAPTCHA and multifactor authentication for the blind and visually impaired.  The most commonly implemented accomodation is an audio CAPTCHA, where the characters in the image are audibly played back to the blind or visually impaired user for correct entry into the edit box.  America Online, Microsoft and PRWeb are examples of companies offering this form of accomodation.   

Another form of accomodation is a text based CAPTCHA.  In such a scheme, a user is asked to solve a simple logic or math problem or answer a basic question in order to be granted admission.  The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an example of an agency that uses such a text based solution.  Some technology experts say this solution is relatively easily cracked by computer programs, so it probably will not be widely implemented in its current form. 

  A third form of accomodation involves the need for manual human intervention on the part of the company requiring the CAPTCHA.  In such a scheme, the resource is protected with a visual CAPTCHA along with a link to click, an e-mail address to write a message or a telephone number to call.  The blind person clicks the link, writes the e-mail or calls the telephone number to receive assistance.  Unfortunately, this approach is fraught with serious challenges that make it completely unworkable in most cases where it is in use.  When a blind user fills out the form, writes the e-mail or calls the number, it is absolutely necessary that the request for help be fulfilled immediately in order for the solution to provide a level of access equal to that enjoyed by his or her sighted peers.  In almost all cases, such requests for assistance either go completely unanswered or are answered in an inappropriate time frame, perhaps days after the request is made.  Another serious problem is the actions taken once the requests are answered.  Are there specific processes in place for effectively delivering these reasonable accomodations?  Are all employees who may be taking the calls properly trained to follow the procedures?  It has been proven to us over and over that the unfortunate answer to both questions is a resounding “no”.  Though some companies are willing to offer these manual interventions as reasonable accomodations, it is clear that, in all cases we have experienced, they do not take seriously the promise to actually deliver the goods.  Examples of web sites supposedly offering the human intervention method of accomodation include GoDaddy.com, Slashdot.org, ticketmaster.com and Yahoo.com. 

Unfortunately, there still exist many web sites that do not offer any reasonable accomodations to their visual CAPTCHA at all.  Examples of sites in this camp include activate.sirius.com, friendster.com and myspace.com.  When a blind person does manage to find someone at these companies to contact, assistance is rarely, if ever, offered. 

At a bare minimum, visual only CAPTCHA locks blind people out of equal participation in web sites such as information portals and social networking resources.  More seriously, visual CAPTCHA without reasonable accomodation actually prevents blind people from completing business transactions, as in the CAPTCHAs on godaddy.com and ticketmaster.com.  Finally, visual only multifactor authentication schemes, such as security keys, can prevent blind people from accessing their money or even obtaining or retaining employment! 

I am writing to ask that you direct the National Federation of the Blind, as the largest consumer organization of the blind in the United States, to show clear leadership in advocacy for access to CAPTCHA and multifactor authentication.  In the short term, please officially support the Yahoo! Accessibility Improvement Petition at http://blindwebaccess.com and make higher level efforts to contact Yahoo! executives to discuss the need for a better CAPTCHA solution on Yahoo! web sites.  In the longer term, please consistently support existing grassroots advocacy efforts in this area and carry out new efforts on an organizational level to exercise influence and, possibly, legislation to address these serious concerns. 

Sincerely, 

Darrell Shandrow – Accessibility Evangelist

We thank the American Council of the Blind for joining us in support of the Yahoo! Accessibility Improvement Petition along with the organization’s willingness to consider taking on additional future efforts surrounding accessibility issues involving CAPTCHA and multifactor authentication. A cross-organizational approach to this and other critical access needs would serve to further these vital causes.

EdSharp 2.2 released

http://www.EmpowermentZone.com/edsetup.exe

Version 2.2
Released September 8, 2007

This version adds advanced features related to snippets, regular
expressions, and user-defined tokens. It also strengthens the ability to
select and download files from a web page. Fixes and enhancements are
documented below.

Jamal

Fixed the Replace with Regular Expression command (Control+Shift+R) not
interpreting standard tokens like \n in the substitution string. Fixed a
space not being inserted before an attribute name in an HTML snippet. Such
an attribute may now contain \n or other nonprinting tokens. It may be
commented out with a semicolon (;) as the first character of the line.

Added a check for whether the file in the current editing window has been
modified by another program since being loaded from disk. If so, you are
prompted whether to open it again (like what Alt+O does manually). If you
answer No, version checking on the current file stops until you save or
reload it.

The Print command (Control+P) now prints a file with a .rtf extension using
the associated program for this operation in the Windows registry (typically
Microsoft Word or WordPad). The Export command (Alt+Shift+E) now includes
options for ASCII format (characters with ANSI codes above 127 are removed),
Mac format (line break is \r), and Unix format (line break is \n).

Added more search commands. As before, Control+F or Control+Shift+F search
forward or backward for standard text. Alt+F3 or Alt+Shift+F3 search
forward or backward for either the chunk at the cursor or selected text.
Control+F3 or Control+Shift+F3 prompt for a regular expression for searching
forward or backward. F3 or Shift+F3 search forward or backward for the last
target, which may be either standard text or a regular expression.

Fixed problems with the Web Download command, and added more commands for
checking and navigation in this and other list-based dialogs (similar to the
FileDir application). Press Shift+DownArrow for check and Next, or
Shift+UpArrow for check and Previous. Press Shift+End for check to Bottom,
or Shift+Home for check to Top. Shift+NumPad5 checks the current item. F8
marks the start of a checking operation, completed with Shift+F8.

Adding the Alt modifier key performs the same action except for uncheckging
rather than checkging. Thus, Alt+Shift+NumPad5 unchecks the current item,
Alt+Shift+Home unchecks to the top of the list, Alt+Shift+End unchecks to
the bottom, Alt+Shift+DownArrow unchecks en route to the next item, and
Alt+Shift+UpArrow unchecks en route to the previous. F8 then Alt+Shift+F8
unchecks items in that range.

Other arrow keypad actions navigate among checkged items. Control+Home goes
to the top checkged item, and Control+End goes to the bottom one.
Control+DownArrow goes to the Next , and Control+UpArrow goes to the
previous.

Shift+Space tells you what items are currently checked. Alt+A says the
address of the current item in the list, e.g., 11 of 42.

A new section of EdSharp.ini is called Tokens. Each of these user-defined
tokens is an expression in Microsoft JScript .NET. Three examples are
currently provided in the configuration file. The CurrentDirectory token
illustrates a call to a static method in the .NET Framework Class Library
(FCL) — in this case, returning the current directory of the EdSharp
process. The Signature token shows syntax for a literal string — in this
case, a signature block with multiple lines. The Unordered List token
refers to a JScript file called ul.js that is provided in the HTML snippet
folder.

When EdSharp finds that a token refers to a file in the current snippet
folder, it interprets the content of that file as JScript. The ul.js
example creates an unordered list element in HTML after prompting for the
number of items to generate in the list. Its content is as follows:

[Begin Content of ul.js]
var iCount = Interaction.InputBox("Number of Items:", "Input", "0")
var sTag = "<ul>\n"
var i = 1
while (i <= iCount) {
sTag += "<li>Item" + i + "</li>\n"
i++
}
sTag += "</ul>\n"
[End Content of ul.js]

User-defined tokens may be included in a snippet that has the "form" keyword
in its header. They may also be typed in a document being edited. As
before, the Evaluate Expression command, Control+Equals, evaluates the
current line or selected text as JScript code and places the result on the
line below. The new Replace Tokens command, Control+Shift+Equals, swaps
tokens with their computed results in all or selected text. Thus, you might
press Alt+Shift+M for Manual Options and define a signature token as
follows:

[Tokens]
Signature=("Sincerely,\nJohn Doe\nJohn.Doe@NiftyHomePage.com\n")

Then type %Signature% in your document where you want that to appear, and
use the Replace Tokens command to do it.

Added the Transform Files command (Alt+Equals) to apply a saved set of
search and replace tasks to one or more files — typically to massage data
or formatting in predictable ways (like the Massage Operation command of
TextPal). EdSharp prompts for the job file containing the regular
expressions to apply. Each task is defined by three lines: (1) a comment
explaining the operation, (2) the search expression, and (3) the replacement
expression. A blank line seperates each task. The current editing window
should contain the list of files to process, one per line. Such a list
could be typed manually or generated via the Path List command
(Control+Shift+P). If a file does not include a leading path, the prior one
is assumed.

Here is the content of a sample transform job that defines two tasks:

[Begin Content of TrimLine.txt]
Remove leading space or tab characters from each line
(\A|\n)( |\t)+
$1

Remove trailing space or tab characters from each line
( |\t)+(\r|\Z)
$2
[End Content of TrimLine.txt]

Visual Verification: While Changing Logos and Signs, PayPal Still Says "No Blind People Allowed"!

Recently, the folks over on the PayPal Blog have been writing about all the changes being made to their logos and signs. Alas, there’s one signage change the eBay / PayPal folks seem to be resisting! That change involves removal of the “No Blind People Allowed” signs imposed by their continued inaccessible CAPTCHAs and, sometime in the not-too-distant future, their Security Key! Let’s all continue to flood PayPal’s customer service people regarding this issue of vital importance.

Initial Thoughts on the K-NFB Reader

Karen and I took a short trip this morning down to the National Federation of the Blind of Arizona’s state convention. The hotel where it is being held is only a couple of miles from our house! We took a look at several exhibits and visited with a few people we know in the Federation. There may also be a new opportunity to promote accessibility coming from this visit. I think the short visit was worthwhile, and we will be returning this evening for a couple of hours to do some more socializing.

One of the neat opportunities we enjoyed was a live, hands on demonstration of the Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind (K-NFB) Reader. Though the device is, indeed, very portable, we were both disappointed at the lack of tactile controls on the PDA. All the keys on the front panel are close together and there is precious little tactile differentiation between four of the most important controls. Despite the use of mainstream technologies in both the camera and PDA components, we would expect the people integrating them to ensure the greatest possible usability of the final product. Our concerns are that people with nerve damage and those who are novice technology users may have significant difficulty locating and pressing the keys on the front of the PDA. The representative suggested the user might add these tactile features, but I feel this is an unreasonable burden posed by an assistive technology product of this nature. As always, your thoughts are appreciated.