advocacy

Response to David Pogue: Are Efforts to Acquire Accessibility by the Blind Being Lumped in with Piracy?

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May 25, 2008

Dear Mr. Pogue,

It is really disappointing to see blind people mentioned categorically in a negative light through your article entitled Can e-Publishing Overcome Copyright Concerns? in the New York Times. Unless there have been piracy convictions in a court of law, you have no absolute proof that those two blind people to whom you provided electronic copies of your books were the same ones who posted the illegal copies two days later. As people who lack physical eye sight, or who’s sight is extremely limited, we endure serious information accessibility challenges. This circumstance is completely beyond our control. Despite current technologies, we probably have access to easily 10 percent or less of the printed material you enjoy as a fully sighted person.

There are protected ways in which you may provide your books in an accessible format, one of which is Bookshare at http://www.bookshare.org. You could have also asked for some reasonable proof of disability before sending your books to complete strangers in an unprotected format. Please consider dawning a blindfold and a free screen reader like System Access to Go (http://www.satogo.com) and experiencing the world our way for a few hours, then consider clarifying your position toward blind and visually impaired people and the accessibility obstacles we face.

I hope you will consider making this right, so that your words don’t negatively impact our abilities to acquire an education and avail ourselves of employment opportunities through further worsening of the bleak inaccessibility we continue to encounter on a daily basis.

Best regards,

Darrell Shandrow

Accessibility Evangelist

Visual Verification: Audio CAPTCHA Broken, How Will Web Site Operators Respond?

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In the article Google’s Audio CAPTCHA Cracked, PC Magazine is reporting impending security challenges for a technology on which we depend in order to reasonably accomodate our need for equal access and participation on the Internet. While companies obviously work to improve the security and usability of visual CAPTCHA, what action will they take toward the blind and visually impaired? Will they improve audio CAPTCHA or will they restore the dreaded “No Blind People Allowed” signs that still bar us from admission to many web sites? How much more difficult has it now become to convince others to unlock their doors to us? As always, comments are welcomed and encouraged.

Concerted, Multidisciplinary, Organized and Systematic Approach to Accessibility Evangelism Needed

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I’ve been thinking long and hard about accessibility evangelism in general as of late. Although a few positive differences have been made along the way, the overall results of our efforts here at Blind Access Journal have represented significantly less than the proverbial drop in the bucket. Once in awhile, an online petition is initiated, a company voluntarily decides to make its products and services more accessible or an organization files a lawsuit in an attempt to compel a company to become more accessible based on existing, vaguely defined legislation. Despite continuous, ongoing technological innovation for the sighted, we blind and visually impaired people are being left further and further behind, both by a mainstream technology industry that largely ignores us and an assistive technology industry that can’t or simply won’t innovate to the level that is really needed in order for us to participate in society on anything approaching parity with our sighted peers. Unfortunately, a few dedicated souls in the online, connected blind community can’t reverse these disturbing trends alone. Successful accessibility evangelism that results in our being afforded the opportunity to fully participate in the information age is going to take a concerted, multidisciplinary, organized and systematic approach directed by an organization with a positive track record of acting in the best interests of the blind and visually impaired.

At the Blind Access Journal, I can count on the fingers of my two hands the number of people who have provided us with anything approaching a significant amount of assistance with any of the accessibility evangelism we have undertaken. As this continues to be the state of affairs, we at the Journal become discouraged, decreasing our inspiration to do our critical work. Any accessibility evangelism efforts must involve a consistently concerted effort on the part of at least tens or hundreds of members of the blind community and those who care about what happens to us. Until the amount of participation in accessibility evangelism increases by leaps and bounds over its current levels, no major steps forward can be taken. The following represent examples of steps one could take to further the cause of equal accessibility for the blind:

  • When you see an accessibility issue, send an e-mail to the company asking for its resolution in a reasonable way that permits our participation.

  • Promptly sign online petitions, write letters and take other steps requested of you by accessibility evangelists.

  • Send an e-mail to us or to others you believe to be effective accessibility evangelists asking what you can do to help further the cause of equal access.

  • If you are a blogger or podcaster, whether blind or sighted, discuss accessibility and ask your audience to take positive action.

The blind community is small, yet there are at least tens of thousands of us already connected to the Internet. If a company’s representatives hear from only one or two people asking for an accessibility accomodation, those requests are likely to go largely ignored in most cases; however, if they hear from even a couple of hundred people asking about the same issue, that’s bound to be sufficient to garner some serious attention. This is especially true if many such requests can get escalated up the company’s or organizations management chain of command. If these requests can be made by a large number of people in an organized, systematic manner, the impact could be even greater.

In order to be most effective, I have come to the conclusion that accessibility evangelism needs to be done in such a way as to coordinate the efforts of individuals in an organized, systematic manner. The employees and management of companies and organizations will become confused if many individuals make complex requests for wildly differing forms of accessibility accomodations. It is obvious that such confusion and complexity would turn anyone off to the possibility of working with us to meet our needs in a reasonable way that allows us to participate while minimizing the economic and time impact to their business operations. Both the individual and the organizational components of such evangelism are critical. The following are examples of steps that could be taken to make accessibility evangelism a more organized, systematic enterprise:

  • House an accessibility evangelism department or team within the umbrella of an organization that truly cares about what happens to blind and visually impaired people. Examples of such organizations might be the Accessibility Is a Right Foundation, The American Foundation for the Blind or Benetech.

  • Devise an accessibility help desk blind and visually impaired people may contact when access barriers are encountered, assign the access issue a case number and work the problem toward an acceptable resolution as would any other technical support help desk operation in the world.

  • Create a knowledge base featuring assistive technology and mainstream solutions to accessibility barriers.

  • Establish sound policies and procedures for handling accessibility advocacy projects from the initial request for help, through appropriate escalation steps to final disposition.

  • Using information from the help desk in accordance with policies and procedures, initiate private and public advocacy campaigns in both the blind community and the sighted world at large to encourage positive resolution to those barriers that seem particularly intractible.

Such a mammoth project clearly requires coordination and support by a team of core individuals who are able to direct and encourage the advocacy efforts of the entire blind community. This core group should represent a multidisciplinary cabal of men and women from a widely diverse field of interests and professions. Experts in communications, marketing, public relations and sales could make requests of companies and organizations to improve accessibility and relate positively with the entire blind community to encourage their proactive participation in the accessibility evangelism process. Computer programmers and other technology experts could devise solutions to access barriers and educate other programmers on all the cost effective ways to go about resolving the issues effectively. Journalists could objectively report on the current state of accessibility issues and write opinion pieces covering all the ways the barriers may be effectively reduced or eliminated. As a last resort, lawyers and political scientists could address accessibility issues from a legal and political point of view, attempting to achieve structured settlements, filing lawsuits and encouraging the passage of additional, relevant legislation as needed. It takes significant depth to properly address these critical issues in ways that can result in successful outcomes.

It is our human nature to take the path of least resistance. We are often finding excuses for doing nothing about the issues that impact us. We believe “someone else” will take care of the problem on our behalf. This is an incredibly destructive fallacy for our community. There are far too few someone elses available to do this critical work. A truly effective accessibility evangelism effort must be concerted, involving effort expended by a large number of members of the blind community as well as those in the sighted world who care about what happens to us. In order to achieve any lasting impact, accessibility evangelism ultimately must be housed within a recognized organization and be comprised of a team effort with a dedicated core group of multidisciplinary professionals who will utilize a solid set of policies and procedures to direct the efforts of a much larger group of volunteers and the entire blind community. If we really desire the accessibility we must have in order to participate in society on an equal footing with the sighted, it is time for us to get serious by combining individual and organizational resources into an accessibility evangelism project that can take the needs of the blind community and educate the rest of the world in ways that turn problems into effective solutions.

How Do We Effectively Educate the Public and Combat False Assumptions About Accessibility?

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I just finished reading Independent Street : Is Your Web Site Blind-Friendly? How to Avoid a Lawsuit by Wendy Bounds. While Wendy provided a good overview of the issues surrounding the law and the need for web site accessibility, I found many of the comments to be rather shocking! How do we effectively carry out the monumental task of educating the public at large and those who could become part of the accessible solution of the future? How can we show the world that accessibility is a good idea and that, in most cases, becoming accessible doesn’t have to represent a huge expense? Just as most of us recognize the inherent human rights of other populations, such as African-Americans and women, we must recognize that accessibility is a right and a necessity in order for those of us with disabilities to be participating, productive members of society. I have just posted my own comment to this article and ask that each and every one of you who read Blind Access Journal please do likewise. It may also be helpful to check out Mike Calvo’s excellent response to the article and many of its associated comments. We must all do our part to get out the good word about accessibility.

Happy New Year as We Celebrate the Third Anniversary of Blind Access Journal

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On Friday, December 17, 2004, we began Blind Access Journal as a vehicle for accessibility evangelism. Though the first article was a subdued piece covering an accessible wireless security software program, the second article covered accessibility related concerns with the UPS shipping company. From those modest beginnings, we have directly advocated for improved access to technology and transportation, raised awareness of the need for accessibility, stirred up the blind community through vigorous discussion of critical topics and written numerous thought provoking articles on accessibility, blindness and human rights of people with all disabilities. As 2007 has now come to an end, and we have now embarked on a brand new year, we thought it would be interesting to review a sampling of our accomplishments and other memorable moments over the past three years:

  • December 2004 – We began our ongoing campaign for accessible CAPTCHA (visual verification) and multifactor authentication schemes with the article entitled Google’s Inaccessible Account Creation Process highlighting the company’s use of a scheme for protecting web based resources that inherently blocks access for blind people by requiring the use of eye sight without nonvisual alternatives.

  • February 2005 – Published the article entitled Securing Our Future In An Uncertain Brave New World, which spurred some thought provoking discussion in the online blind community.

  • February 2005 – We began our brief advocacy on behalf of Terry Schiavo, a minimally conscious Florida woman who was deliberately removed from her life-saving feeding tube by her husband, resulting in her death, despite the wishes of the rest of her family to keep her alive. Bioethicists like Dr. Peter Singer must be delighted. We are concerned that concepts such as “quality of life” and “undue burden” may, one day in the distant future, could place our very right to exist as people with disabilities in serious jeopardy.

  • April 1, 2005 – Darrell proposes marriage to Karen, she accepts and they are engaged on Jeff Bishop’s The Desert Skies radio show on ACB Radio Interactive. It is possible to download an archive of this special event.

  • June 2005 – Blind Access Journal officially joins the podcasting scene.

  • October 2005 – First significant use of the “No Blind People Allowed Sign” as a means to insist on accessible alternatives to CAPTCHA (visual verification) schemes on web sites.

  • November 2005 – Darrell attends the first Portable Media Expo and Podcasting Conference in Ontario, California; makes new friends and further raises awareness of the need for accessibility.

  • November 2005 – Darrell appears live on Leo Laporte’s This Week in Tech podcast live from the expo. TWiT is heard by hundreds of thousands of technology oriented listeners around the world.

  • November 2005 – Adam Curry publicly pledges in front of a worldwide audience to ensure that the products and services offered by Podshow are accessible; claims accessibility is part of the company’s “core DNA”. We had this nice chat at the podcasting expo. Unfortunately, Mr. Curry has never followed through on any of his promises!

  • November 2005 – A reporter publishes the article Journalist Advocates Better Online Access For Blind shortly after my appearance at the podcasting expo.

  • November 2005 – America Online adds audio playback to its CAPTCHA for the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) signup process.

  • January 12, 2006 – We initiated the Google Word Verification Accessibility Petition asking that the mission statement to “do no evil” be followed and all the company’s CAPTCHAs be promptly made more accessible to the blind and visually impaired. The petition garners 4,725 signatures and receives widespread coverage on blogs and podcasts as well as several mainstream technology media outlets.

  • January 2006 – PRWeb makes their visual verification scheme accessible in less than one week of the request! We thank Al Castle, the company’s Chief Technology Officer, for his amazing communication and responsiveness.

  • February 2006 – Darrell almost loses his job due to the conversion of his team to the use of inaccessible software. His job is saved and duties reassigned thanks in large part to persistent, effective advocacy.

  • April 2006 – In response to effective advocacy, Google begins the process of rolling out its audio playback CAPTCHA and agrees to hire software engineers in a commitment to become more accessible overall.

  • May 2006 – Google completes roll out of audio CAPTCHA.

  • June 2006 – Darrell and Karen are married in a wonderful ceremony and reception aboard the Odyssey with family and close friends in attendance. You may listen to a recording of the ceremony.

  • June 2006 – In response to a letter from Blind Access Journal, Sirius Satellite Radio adds an audio playback feature to its CAPTCHA, restoring the ability of blind subscribers to listen online.

  • July 2006 – Darrell is quoted in a brief article entitled Google for the Blind in the San Francisco Chronicle.

  • August 4, 2006 – Darrell and Karen make their debut with the Desert Cafe show on ACB Radio Interactive. The show now has a permanent time slot at 22:00 UTC every Monday.

  • October 2006 – Bloglines responds to our report of accessibility challenges after changes made to the web site by taking effective, prompt steps to restore accessibility. We thank Ben Lowery with Bloglines for his fast response.

  • January 2007 – Darrell becomes co-host with Jeff Bishop of Main Menu, a technology oriented talk show from a blindness perspective, on ACB Radio Mainstream.

  • January 14, 2007 – Darrell and Karen appear on the Marlaina program on ACB Radio Mainstream.

  • January 2007 – FeedBurner adds an audio CAPTCHA.

  • February 26, 2007 – Darrell undergoes the first of two surgeries to repair a retinal detachment in his right eye. The first surgery includes a cornea transplant and minor laser work.

  • March 16, 2007 – Darrell undergoes second surgery after second retinal detachment. This one turns out to be much more serious and painful.

  • May 2007 – Skype responds to accessibility concerns from Blind Access Journal and other parties by releasing an update resolving the most critical issues.

  • May 2007 – We get an effective, prompt response from the U.S. Senate concerning an accessibility issue on the senate.gov web site.

  • May 2007 – Blind Access Journal weighs in on the Freedom Scientific v. Serotek lawsuit in defense of Serotek with a petition asking that the parties resolve their differences in a manner that preserves innovation in the assistive technology industry.

  • May 2007 – Darrell publishes the following thought provoking articles, resulting in requests for republication in several blindness organizations’ monthly magazines:

  • June 7, 2007 – Freedom Scientific settles with Serotek in a manner that permits Serotek to continue developing and selling its innovative technology.

  • June 2007 – Darrell publishes the thought provoking article entitled My Thoughts on the Relationship Between Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies, Consumers and the Blindness Assistive Technology Industry as discussions of the state of the blindness assistive technology industry continue at a fever pitch.

  • July 2007 – Blind Access Journal begins promoting the Yahoo! Accessibility Improvement Petition asking the company to make all their CAPTCHAs accessible to the blind and visually impaired. The petition is still ongoing, and is officially endorsed by the American Council of the Blind.

  • July 2007 – Darrell publishes Accessibility Is A Right, Not a Charity, Convenience, Luxury or Privilege in an attempt to further clarify the absolutely critical nature of the need for accessibility to facilitate our civil rights as people who are blind or visually impaired. We believe this article has been republished, with permission, in Dialogue Magazine, as well as several others.

  • July 2007 – After we wrote a letter to Netralia, the developer of the CallBurner Skype call recording software, we received an incredibly quick response in the form of an accessible application! See this article for the full story. We thank Paul Andrews at Netralia for spearheading this effort. CallBurner has become the only application we use for all our Skype call recording needs. It turns out to be quite useful in advocacy situations in combination with the Skype-in or Skype-out services for receiving and placing telephone calls, as well as in recording interviews for eventual replay on radio shows and podcasts. CallBurner is the official Skype telephone call recording program of the Blind Access Journal!

  • August 2007 – Darrell publishes Imagine The Dark Future of CAPTCHA and Multifactor Authentication for the Blind as a wake up call to the blind community.

  • August 2007 – Darrell’s letter to Leo Laporte concerning the need for accessible CAPTCHA is read and discussed in depth on Episode 102 of the Security Now! podcast with Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson.

  • September 2007 – The new blind-access mailing list is created as a core group of interested parties discussing effective approaches to accessibility evangelism. You may join by sending an e-mail to blind-access-request@lists.blindaccessjournal.com with the word subscribe in the subject field.

  • September 2007 – Darrell publishes The Heart of Accessibility Evangelism in response to several disturbing conversations on the subject.

  • October 2007 – We ask Freedom Scientific to take steps to reasonably accomodate its deaf-blind customers by making text transcripts available for all their podcasts and other audio content.

  • November 2007 – Slashdot.org adds an audio playback feature, making their CAPTCHA accessible.

  • November 29, 2007 – Darrell’s sister, Michelle Sinnock, passes away due to lung cancer.

  • December 2007 – Darrell writes letter to the developers of Messenger Plus Live asking for an accessible alternative or removal of the CAPTCHA required to uninstall the sponsored version of their software.

As you all can see, we have accomplished a few things. There is, however, so much more left to be done. Several challenges over the past couple of months have resulted in very little activity here on the journal. One blind couple can’t do everything! The task of keeping the journal running is monumental. We are, thus, asking for your support as our faithful readers. Please consider doing one or more of the following:

  1. Join the blind-access mailing list. Send a blank e-mail to blind-access-request@lists.blindaccessjournal.com with the word subscribe in the subject field. This list serves as a vehicle for informal discussion of accessibility issues and ways in which we might best evangelize their favorable resolution.

  2. Submit your own articles, ideas for articles or any other useful information directly to us by writing to our editor@blindaccessjournal.com e-mail address or by leaving a message on our comment line at 206-350-2621.

  3. Place telephone calls, sign petitions, write letters and take all other actions we request of you from time to time in order to show your support for our right to have the accessibility we must be granted in order to fully participate in society.

2008 is now upon us. We wish all of you happiness in this new year, and invite all of you to join us out here on the front lines of accessibility evangelism!

QVC Asked to Retain Accessibility in Web Site Update

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Randy from Accessible Devices has informed us that the QVC home shopping network is beta testing a significantly updated web site. While the current site is accessible to blind shoppers, the beta site is apparently not so great. We have just submited a short note to the QVC webmasters asking that they keep in mind the accessibility needs of their blind customers. A response has been explicitly requested, so please stay tuned for any updates. In the meantime, all blind and visually impaired QVC shoppers are asked to immediately complete this contact form asking QVC to continue reasonably accomodating and retaining their blind and visually impaired customers by ensuring the ongoing accessibility of the web site. One quick note from an accessible evangelist is only the very beginning, but it is not even close to sufficient as an ending step. If you are blind or visually impaired, and you shop with QVC, please fill out the form requesting web site accessibility right now.

Freedom Scientific Asked to Reasonably Accomodate Deaf-Blind Customers

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I just read the article Freedom Scientific says no to access for deaf people on the Access Ability blog, and I must say I am rather dismayed. The issue at hand is the current lack of accessibility of the company’s FSCast to the deaf-blind segment of the blind community.

While Freedom Scientific manufactures products to meet the needs of an underserved, minority population, it also seems to be failing to accomodate a segment of that very community. How can we ask the mainstream technology industry to reasonably accomodate us, when we allow companies in our own blind community to pass on providing accessibility by claiming a lack of resources?

We at Blind Access Journal ask Freedom Scientific to reasonably accomodate its deaf-blind customers by following these steps to incrementally increase the accessibility of their podcast audio content:

  1. Provide a link to an alternative document that delivers similar information. In the case of the most recent podcast episode 10, for instance, posting the JAWS 9.0 release notes at the same time as the audio would have represented a positive step forward.
  2. Provide detailed show notes that cover all the same important information delivered in the audio presentation. This can be a summary, at least in the beginning, so long as the same important information is delivered.
  3. Finally, the ultimate goal should be to supply full text transcripts of each FSCast episode.

We ask Freedom Scientific to do the right thing by moving toward full accomodation of its deaf-blind customers in a way that is inexpensive while ensuring their full inclusion in everything the company has to offer. We believe the largest player in the blindness assistive technology industry ought to be able to show positive movement in this area by the time episode 11 of the FSCast is released. Come on, Freedom Scientific, please step up to the plate, do the right thing and make sure all your blind customers, including those whom also happen to be deaf, are afforded a full and equal opportunity to participate.

Visual Verification: Six Apart Continues to Lock Out the Blind with Inaccessible CAPTCHA

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We continue to be locked out of full and equal participation by Six Apart, developers of the TypePad blogging platform, due to an inaccessible CAPTCHA used for account creation and posting comments to blogs. In the past, numerous attempts to contact the company have gone ignored. Now that it has come to our attention that various members of the disability community use TypePad as their blogging platform, despite its inaccessible CAPTCHA, it would seem to be time for another attempt at getting this issue properly addressed by Six Apart. All blind and visually impaired Internet users, along with those sighted people who care about what happens to us, are urged to use the Contact Us page on the Six Apart web site to ask the company to finally do the right thing by making their CAPTCHA accessible. I have already contacted Jane Anderson, Six Apart’s Media Contact, asking for her assistance in resolving this issue or devising a plan for doing so in preparation for another article in the works concerning TypePad bloggers in the disability community. It has been proven over and over again that, if we keep on publicly and privately discussing this issue of the inaccessible CAPTCHA lockout, it often does eventually get resolved. Let’s all keep the lights shining clearly on this challenge as we move toward more positive results.

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

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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.