Visual Verification

I am working with Kurt, one of the software engineers over at Digg.com, on the implementation of their audio CAPTCHA. Unfortunately, there appear to be some scenarios where the audio is never played when the link is clicked. Please visit Digg’s registration page, click the link to listen to the CAPTCHA and send me an e-mail with your results. Please let me know whether or not you heard the audio, give some constructive feedback on the quality and provide the following technical information:

• Browser and version number
• Operating system
• Screen reader

Digg’s audio CAPTCHA is almost complete. There are some minor problems right now, but I am now confident that they care about the issue and will work with us constructively to get the technical challenges ironed out, making the registration process work not only for the sighted, but also for those of us whom happen to be blind or visually impaired. We thank the folks at Digg for taking care of this serious access issue.

We are very happy to report that FeedBurner now provides an audio CAPTCHA alternative to their visual verification requirement for the Email Subscription service. This now means that blind and visually impaired people are allowed to subscribe to RSS feeds using their e-mail addresses. In the article A New Hack on the Burning Questions blog, the FeedBurner people tell the world this accomodation was implemented within one day’s time.

Check out this excerpt from the article:

At 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, January 18, we put “normal” development on hold, gathered together in our new and improved conference room (now with white-boards and a projector!) and figured out our one-day projects. That’s the rule for Hackathon: enter the day with an idea, exit the day with a fully-implemented new feature for FeedBurner. “That’s impossible! Even for a computer,” you say. Well, this ragged band of rebels was up to the task…

This tells us that bringing down the “no blind people allowed” sign of inaccessible visual verification is mostly a matter of simply getting the decision makers and developers to decide to do the right thing. We just need to keep on the advocacy and the pressure, when necessary, to insist on equal access.