accessibility

Good Thursday TV Coverage of the Kindle Lawsuit

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At around 4:00 Thursday afternoon, I was contacted by Melissa Blasius with Channel 12 News in Phoenix and asked if I could be available at 5:30 to be interviewed for a story that would run on the 10:00 newscast. I discovered I could prepare myself and make the necessary transportation arrangements for this sort of work within one hour after receiving the request.

You may now watch the video of the story on the 10:00 evening news. An article was also written based on this story, though its text is significantly different from the dialogue on the newscast. A copy of the article’s text is provided for easy accessibility.

My thanks go to Chris Skarstad (Toonhead) and CathyAnne Murtha of the Access Technology Institute for their vital assistance making it possible to bring to all of you a direct link to the video despite accessibility issues with the 12 News web site.

Lawsuit says ASU discriminates by using e-books

by Melissa Blasius – Jul. 2, 2009 11:13 PM

12 News

A journalism student has filed a discrimination lawsuit against Arizona State University.

Darrell Shandrow, a junior, wants the university to delay a pilot program for electronic textbooks and readers called Kindles. He says the devices, made by Amazon, are impossible to use by visually-impaired people.

Sandrow, who is blind, says Kindles have a text-to-audio function that can read the books out loud, but he claims on-screen menus have no audio functions. That means he could never navigate to page one. Blind students would have to continue ordering specialty texts in braille or audio formats, and those books can take months to arrive.

Shandrow said, “Asking us to continue on as we’re going is like saying to sighted students you are climbing on to jet age with your e-books, but blind students still need to use the horse and buggy.”

The National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which claims ASU’s use of Kindles would put blind students on unequal footing.

An ASU spokesman sent a response to 12 News. It said Kindles would be used “for a single course where students may also access traditional textbooks.”

In the statement, Spokesman Virgil Renzulli also said all campuses have Disability Resource Centers “providing the necessary tools so that all students with disabilities have an equal opportunity to be successful in their academic pursuits.”

Positive TV News Coverage of the Kindle Lawsuit Against ASU

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Shortly after 9:00 Tuesday morning, I was contacted by Tim Vetscher with Channel 15, a local ABC affiliate in Phoenix, and asked to participate in a story on the Kindle lawsuit. He picked me up at 10:15 and we went to a nearby bar-restaurant establishment called Four Peaks Brewry, where he and Toby Phillips, a senior broadcast journalism major at the Cronkite School, talked with me for almost 45 minutes. The interview included a demonstration of Braille reading and accessible technology, part of which made it into the TV story.

After viewing the story, Chris Danielsen, director of public relations for the National Federation of the Blind, said: “Nice job on this. I see that they didn’t get the nuance that books can be read aloud by the Kindle DX; it’s the navigation that’s not accessible. Still, I think we got our point across.”

The story ran on the 6:00 evening newscast. I am happy to report that you can now watch the video or read the transcript below.

Reported by: Tim Vetscher

Email: tvetscher@abc15.com

Darrell Shandrow, a junior at ASU, is suing the university over its use of the Amazon Kindle for textbooks. (Tim Vetscher)

TEMPE, AZ — A student at Arizona State University is suing the school over a new electronic textbook reader.

Junior Darrell Shandrow calls ASU’s new pilot program to use the Amazon Kindle e-book reader in some classes this fall discrimination.

“I believe it’s important for blind and visually impaired people to have the same opportunity to participate the sighted already enjoy,” said Shandrow.

Even though he can’t see, Shandrow doesn’t shy away from technology.

Thanks to a screen reading program, Shandrow uses a labtop computer that talks to him and tells him what’s on the screen.

That kind of accessibility, Shandrow says, helps him to attend ASU, where he’s a junior in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

When ASU announced plans to begin using the Amazon Kindle as a textbook reader, Shandrow immediately had concerns.

“It’s saying we’re giving sighted students a new avenue for reading but we’re not granting the same facility to blind and visually impaired students,”
said Shandrow.

Shandrow claims the Kindle lacks text-to-speech technology and therefore makes it accessible only to sighted students.

So Shandrow filed a lawsuit against ASU hoping to stop the use of the Kindle.

“We want the pilot program, we just want it to be accessible,” said Shandrow.

An ASU spokesperson released the following statement to ABC15: “Arizona State University is committed to equal access for all students. Disability Resource Centers are located on all ASU campuses. The Centers enable students to establish eligibility and obtain services and accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. These efforts are focused on providing the necessary tools so that all students with disabilities have an equal opportunity to be successful in their academic pursuits.”

“I feel the need for equal accessibility, that is to have an accessible Kindle reading device and accessible books, is a civil right,” said Shandrow.

Amazon claims to be working on adding navigation accessible to the blind for the Kindle.

Shandrow says until that happens, the Kindle e-book reader should be shelved.

In the interest of full disclosure, reporter Tim Vetscher is an adjunct professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

D-Link Soon to Include Audio CAPTCHA and Implement Accessible Default Login on Routers

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D-Link will soon provide audio CAPTCHA and change the login default on its routers to make them more accessible to customers with disabilities.

In a May 12 press release, D-Link announced that it was the first company to add CAPTCHA to its routers as a means of protecting users against new threats. These potential security breaches are serious. “A series of recent Internet security attacks on home and small office computers are compromising networks where users least expect it – their routers. These malicious software invasions, in which users unknowingly download a Trojan horse when performing common tasks, invade the router to detect wireless capabilities, then alter the victim’s domain name system (DNS) records so that all future traffic is diverted through the attackers’ network first”, states the press release.

“We’re excited to be the first in the market to announce we have taken the initiative to implement CAPTCHA into our routers, thus providing yet another layer of security to our customers,” said AJ Wang, chief technology officer of D-Link.

The press release goes on to explain “the term CAPTCHA is an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that responses are generated by humans, not computers. A common type of CAPTCHA requires the user to type letters or numbers from a distorted image that appears on the screen.”

Concerned that blind and visually impaired customers may be unable to access the company’s routers, accessibility advocates quickly reacted. “We did hear from our customer base that there was some concern on the CAPTCHA implementation,” said Dan Kelley, D-Link’s senior director of marketing.

Kelley said a beta version of the firmware is now available that disables the CAPTCHA by default. It will be officially released as an update to all customers once it has undergone the necessary testing. Users will be able to access the router without the CAPTCHA requirement after unboxing. They may explicitly enable the security enhancement through the web user interface as part of the setup process.

“We’re also going to be creating an audio version of the CAPTCHA which will be available in as soon as three to six weeks,” Kelley said. “You can press the button and it will read off the letters that you need to enter rather than having you read them off the screen.”

Effective accessibility evangelism may have helped D-Link executives understand the need for these changes. “In my discussions, I do remember that the audio version was already being planned but now I think that everything’s being a little bit more expedited realizing that there’s been some concern in terms of the feedback of the market,” said Kelley. “We have heard from a couple of customers who need this and we have been able to take care of them promptly.”

Companies like D-Link closely monitor their customer base and the overall technology marketplace for trends, including those pointing to greater accessibility. “We’re going to be paying close attention to what others in the industry are doing in terms of making improvements to CAPTCHA,” Kelley said. “We are always paying attention to customers whether through direct e-mail, on Facebook or on blogs.”

In keeping with its “Building Networks for People” tagline, D-Link is willing to consider additional accessibility enhancements in response to customer feedback. “If there’s anything that would help us figure out a way to make an improvement we’d be glad to hear it.” said Joe Melfi, D-Link’s associate director of business solutions.

Complaint and Motion for Preliminary Injunction Against ASU and the Arizona Board of Regents

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In keeping with our tradition of accessibility and openness, we are glad to provide full plain-text copies of the complaint and the motion for a preliminary injunction against ASU and the Arizona Board of Regents to prevent use of the inaccessible Kindle in an upcoming fall semester university pilot program.

Complaint

Accessible copy of the complaint (The NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND, The AMERICAN COUNCIL OF THE BLIND, and DARRELL SHANDROW vs. The ARIZONA BOARD OF REGENTS and ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY) for discrimination against blind and visually impaired students under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act.

Motion for Preliminary Injunction

Accessible copy of the motion for a preliminary injunction asking the court to immediately stop ASU from implementing the pilot program at the beginning of the fall semester on August 24 while the complaint goes forward.

Darrell Shandrow Joins ACB and NFB to File Discrimination Suit Against ASU Over Inaccessible Amazon Kindle DX Pilot Program

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

  • Chris Danielsen

  • Director of Public Relations

  • National Federation of the Blind

  • (410) 659-9314, extension 2330

  • (410) 262-1281 (Cell)

  • cdanielsen@nfb.org

National Federation of the Blind and American Council of the Blind File Discrimination Suit Against Arizona State University

University’s Amazon Kindle DX Pilot Program Discriminates Against the Blind

Tempe, Arizona (June 25, 2009): The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and the American Council of the Blind (ACB) filed suit today against Arizona State University (ASU) to prevent the university from deploying Amazon’s Kindle DX electronic reading device as a means of distributing electronic textbooks to its students because the device cannot be used by blind students. Darrell Shandrow, a blind ASU student, is also a named plaintiff in the action. The Kindle DX features text-to-speech technology that can read textbooks aloud to blind students. The menus of the device are not accessible to the blind, however, making it impossible for a blind user to purchase books from Amazon’s Kindle store, select a book to read, activate the text-to-speech feature, and use the advanced reading functions available on the Kindle DX. In addition to ASU, five other institutions of higher education are deploying the Kindle DX as part of a pilot project to assess the role of electronic textbooks and reading devices in the classroom. The NFB and ACB have also filed complaints with the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education and the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, asking for investigations of these five institutions, which are: Case Western Reserve University, the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, Pace University, Princeton University, and Reed College. The lawsuit and complaints allege violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “Given the highly-advanced technology involved, there is no good reason that Amazon’s Kindle DX device should be inaccessible to blind students. Amazon could have used the same text-to-speech technology that reads e-books on the device aloud to make its menus accessible to the blind, but it chose not to do so. Worse yet, six American higher education institutions that are subject to federal laws requiring that they not discriminate against students with disabilities plan to deploy this device, even though they know that it cannot be used by blind students. The National Federation of the Blind will not tolerate this unconscionable discrimination against and callous indifference to the right of blind students to receive an equal education. We hope that this situation can be rectified in a manner that allows this exciting new reading technology to be made available to blind and sighted students alike.”

Darrell Shandrow, a blind student pursuing a degree in journalism at ASU, said: “Not having access to the advanced reading features of the Kindle DX—including the ability to download books and course materials, add my own bookmarks and notes, and look up supplemental information instantly on the Internet when I encounter it in my reading—will lock me out of this new technology and put me and other blind students at a competitive disadvantage relative to our sighted peers. While my peers will have instant access to their course materials in electronic form, I will still have to wait weeks or months for accessible texts to be prepared for me, and these texts will not provide the access and features available to other students. That is why I am standing up for myself and with other blind Americans to end this blatant discrimination.”

Newegg Rolls Out Login Page Featuring Inaccessible CAPTCHA, Locks Out Blind and Visually Impaired Customers

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Responding to a report from a blind Newegg customer, an inaccessible CAPTCHA was discovered Tuesday in the company’s login process for all customers.

“Wow, well, until I can get a hold of someone at NewEgg, guess I’m not going to be able to buy stuff there.  They now have a CAPTCHA in order to log in to one’s account!!!!!” said Tina Ektermanis, a blind college student in Colorado who wanted to order two SD memory cards. “It’s interesting that if you submit without filling in the code, it takes you to the old page, without the captcha, but we need to let them know about this before they put it in place for everything requiring a log in.”

A statement on the company’s login page claims “If you are visually impaired and are having difficulty navigating this site, please call our Customer Support line via our toll free number (800) 390-1119.”

Ektermanis said a friend of hers tried to order products from the company shortly before Christmas 2008 but the request was declined despite the stated promise of assistance.

Mia, a customer service representative, confirmed this lack of assistance during an investigative telephone call to the stated number. “I apologize, but we are not able to take orders by phone,” she said after the unusable validation code was explained.

“Our customer service representatives are supposed to help. This help covers everything, including placing orders and processing returns,” said Vincent Agular, Contact Division Manager in Newegg’s customer service department. He said he is requesting follow up from the company’s web team in light of the availability of numerous alternatives that provide both security and reasonable accommodations.

All blind and visually impaired Newegg customers and potential customers, and those who care about us, are asked to submit feedback to the company’s webmasters asking that they make an accessible alternative to their visual CAPTCHA available right away so as to allow everyone to transact business on terms of equality.

Request for Assistance with Spanish 101 Course from an Accessibility Perspective

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I am taking a Spanish 101 course in order to begin meeting the foreign language requirement for the journalism major at ASU. Unfortunately, the course seems to contain inaccessible, yet crucial, elements:

  • Most of the lab exercises presented on Blackboard must be completed by dragging and dropping the mouse, rely on pictures or seem to present other, unknown inaccessible elements.

  • Many of the practice elements for the Dos Mundos book companion web site are also similarly inaccessible.

  • The textbook relies on pictures more than on direct English to Spanish translation.

I would like to hear from anyone who has successfully taken a Spanish class as a blind student in the recent past using interactive technology. Which aspects of the technology could be made more accessible and how was it accomplished? When the book and interactive exercises could not be made directly accessible, what other reasonable accommodations were made and how successfully did they work for you? All ideas are appreciated as soon as possible, and I thank any of you in advance for any assistance you may be able to provide.

Accessibility Query: Opera Property Management Software

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Karen and I have an urgent request for any Blind Access Journal readers who may be knowledgeable about the accessibility of customer relationship management and related enterprise management solutions. Karen’s employer will be switching to a new integrated solution by April of 2009. It is called Opera Property Management System, developed by a company named Micros. The only specific details we have from the IT department are that it is web based and may be developed using Java technology. Any additional details anyone may have would be greatly appreciated.

The State of Arkansas and SAP A.G. Settle Lawsuit, Make the Accessible Choice!

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We are happy to report that a 2001 accessibility lawsuit brought against SAP and the state of Arkansas by the National Federation of the Blind has now been settled in favor of the state’s blind employees, who will be granted full accessibility to the state’s ERP system by August of 2009. Read the blog post entitled Arkansas state computer system will be accessible to the blind along with the Computer World article covering the story in the mainstream information technology media.

I posted the following public comment to the Computer World article:

Equal accessibility is a reasonable accommodation under several laws in the United States and other parts of the world. As blind people, we spend thousands of dollars on assistive technology to make computers accessible to us. Our aim isn’t to put anyone out of business or cause anyone an undue burden. We just need and want to participate in the workplace just like everyone else. We must be granted equal access to hardware and software in order to achieve this goal. Accessibility is a meet-you-halfway proposition. Our assistive technology industry works tirelessly to create solutions that make our digital lives accessible. It is now time for the mainstream technology industry to step up to the plate more seriously to meet the other half of this proposition, by ensuring that technology works with screen readers and reasonably accommodates our needs for accessibility.

Approximately three weeks ago, I was laid off my job because SonicWALL refused to make its implementation of the Siebel CRM software accessible. It would have taken only about an hour or so worth of a developer’s time, but SonicWALL made the decision not to accommodate me. The resulting discrimination has turned me from a successfully employed taxpayer to a recipient of Social Security Disability benefits and Unemployment Insurance! I hope other developers of mainstream software and web services will learn a valuable lesson from the settlement of this lawsuit. Make the right choice! Open your eyes and work together with us to ensure a brighter, more accessible future for all your customers and end users, including those of us who happen to be blind or visually impaired!

We ask all of you to take a look at the press release, read the Computer World article and post your own comments in support of equal access to workplace technology for the blind and visually impaired!

Delphi Programmer Says Freedom Scientific Does Not Play Nice with the Mainstream Developer Community

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We already know that Freedom Scientific’s JAWS end user license agreement is not friendly to mainstream developers and testers as they work to implement accessibility into their products, services and web sites. As a follow on to this concern, we now hear from Craig Stuntz who reports that no developer program exists for those who have purchased JAWS for this critical purpose. In his most recent blog article, he writes:

One would think that the makers of JAWS would want software producers to test their products with JAWS. But according to a salesperson for Freedom Scientific, there is no developer program for the tool. JAWS is moderately expensive — about $900 — but this is not a barrier for us. What we would really like is to have access to a defect reporting system for JAWS and early access to future versions of the software.

We in the connected online blind community very much do want to see developers striving to improve the accessibility of their applications! The accessibility or inaccessibility of technology makes the difference between our inclusion or exclusion from participation in critical life activities such as those involving education and employment. We urge mainstream developers to continue their efforts using screen readers from companies and open source projects that actively invite and request participation from the mainstream developer community:

We ask all mainstream developers to increase the accessibility of their software and to do so in the most favorable economic manner. Spending a thousand dollars on a screen reader for testing purposes is unnecessary. Download free evaluation copies from companies with more friendly license agreements toward developers or take advantage of free open source alternatives. Accessibility need not break the bank. We’re not asking you to go out of business. Instead, we are just asking for the reasonable accomodations that can afford us the opportunity to learn, work and participate in leisure activities.