Re: Make Facebook's live chat accessible to blind screen reader users?
- From: Tyler Littlefield <tyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2010 08:26:57 -0600
My point was that people scream and yell about things not being accessible when
there are clearly workarounds or the program itself is accessible. Your points
made first don't match with your points later. Nothing is going to be *easy*.
As a blind computer user, *you* have to learn to use the tools available, like
the jaws cursor in order to make things work sometimes, because though we do
have a lot of programs accessible out-of-the-box, being able to use those tools
will make things a lot easier for you, and saves a lot of patitions that people
more than likely won't read. If I were to receive an email that said "Your
program is unaccessible, fix it," I'd just hit the delete key and move on.
Sadly that is what most of the emails look like, rather than someone explaining
why the program isn't accessible, what the reader is and does, and how the
person could make it more accessible first contact usually means someone throws
up the ADA and screams because the person didn't know that there were blind
people and people with other disabilities using tools out there to begin with.
Thanks,
Tyler Littlefield
http://tds-solutions.net
Twitter: sorressean
On Apr 18, 2010, at 8:14 AM, Michael Malver wrote:
> Thanks for doing this.
> I am frustrated by people who argue that workarounds equal accessibility.
> A reader is a work around to having accessible books. Should we write to
> congress and tell them to stop producing books for the blind because there
> is a perfectly good work around out there?
> Social security is a work around to successful employment.
> Should we encourage companies not to hire disabled people since there is a
> way for the disabled to make money?
> Going sighted guide is a workaround for traveling independently. Should we
> encourage everyone to use sighted guide all the time?
>
> If I can't use a product out of the box without having to use specialized
> features, such as the mouse cursor, it is not accessible.
> People who confuse useable with accessible frustrate me as well. You might
> be able to make a script to cause an inaccessible program to be useable, but
> that script in my view doesn't negate a company figuring out how to make
> their software to run out of the box. A script is only good for the
> specific screen reader for which it was designed. Accessible software makes
> the tool useable for everyone.
>
> Just because you may choose not to use something yourself is no reason to
> deny other people having access to it. If you want to use AIM instead of
> facebook to talk to your facebook buddies, that's great, but please help
> those of us who want the ability to use facebook chat and don't understand
> how to make the chat automatically speak gain more access by signing the
> petition which will grant us the kind of access we expect to websites in the
> 21st century.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bryan Garaventa
> Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 7:35 PM
> To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Make Facebook's live chat accessible to blind screen reader users?
>
> Hi, I thought I'd pass this on since it may be of interest to fellow screen
> reader users.
>
> Since there really is no reason why Facebook can't add screen reader
> accessible functionality to the live chat feature, and it would be nice to
> be able to communicate with family and friends using the same features that
> everyone else uses, I created the fan page at
>
> http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Make-Face-Books-Live-Chat-Accessible-to-Bli
> nd-Users/109349762439299?ref=ts
>
> In the hope that, if enough people become fans of the idea, it will act as a
> petition to get Facebook's attention. So if you use Facebook, and would like
> to see live chat become an accessible feature, please consider becoming a
> fan of the page.
>
> The UI implementation that I've proposed through the fan page does the
> following:
> 1) Automatically announces the latest message as soon as it arrives,
> regardless where the focus is positioned on the page;
> 2) Is fully accessible using JAWS 11 with IE7-8 and Firefox3;
> 3) Is fully accessible using NVDA with IE8 and Firefox3;
> 4) Can be visually modified using CSS to fit any display without
> impairing automatic accessibility.
>
> Best wishes,
> Bryan
>
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