[access-uk] Got your Radiohead album yet
- From: "Vanja Sudar" <vanja@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:43:20 +0100
Radiohead might be revolutionising the way we buy music, but when it comes to
accessibility they are definitely in past. Just in case you somehow don't know,
readiohead is asking fans to pay as much or as little for the downloadable
version of their new album. Basically, you go on a website, choose your own
price, pay for it and then on the day of release you get unique code, which
lets you download the album. Simple enough, right? Not if you're blind! When
you get to the website of the album (http://www.inrainbows.com/) you are
presented with 5 totally unlabeled links. Realising that I'll just have to
click on them to try and get somewhere, the first link took me to just an
official radiohead website, so back I went and click on the second one and that
got me to the new album store. I thought it was getting better. So I clicked on
"preorder download". A popup box appeared informing me that the item was added
to basket. So then I clicked on view basket. I was asked to choose the price,
which I did, clicked on "update basket" just to check that everything was fine,
which it was. So then I clicked on pay now. There was a choice of logging in or
if you're a new customer, which I was to click to register. Jaws reported the
link to register as a same page link. It looks like it really was a same page
link because first there were two form fields. One for email address, the the
one for the password, which I assume were for already registered customers.
Then there was a link to register as a new customer and below that link there
was a form field for email address and a submit button (not very well
labelled). I thought it was a bit strange that all they wanted was an email
address, but I thought maybe that I'd be asked more details on the next screen,
or that they'd send me an activation email to continue or something like that.
However every time I clicked on submit I was presented with the exact same
screen. I have no idea what was going on. I don't know why jaws couldn't see
the rest of the form fields. I ended up having a sighted person help me and
according to them there was a lot more than just an email address they wanted,
you had to create a password, they wanted your address and all the usual things
that you'd have to fill in when buying something online. To make things even
worse even if I managed to get all the way to payment, once you submit your
card details you're presented with the image capture, which you obviously had
to fill in in order for the payment to be processed. Incidentally go daddy are
implying the same policy when paying for the domain registration with them. I
hope that this is not becoming a norm. At least with go daddy there was a phone
number right on the same webpage and when I called all I had to do is give the
sale assistant my customer number and all the data I already filled in was on
their screen so I didn't have to go through entire process all over again and
it took less than a minute.
So congratulations to radiohead for letting us pay whatever we think the new
album is worth, but thumbs down when it comes to accessibility of their online
store, which to be fair is obviously not managed by band, but by a company
called waste products LTD. Someone tell them to change their online purchasing
company if they ever decide to do something like this again.
P.s I still don't have my email with unique code/link to download the album. I
better get it soon!
Vanja
http://www.sudar.co.uk
MSN messenger: sudar23@xxxxxxxxxxx
AIM: vanja121
Skype: vanja121
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