Cody B. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
codeman38) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
accessibility_fail2009-10-22 02:16 pm
codeman38) wrote in accessibility_fail2009-10-22 02:16 pm
A special kind of accessibility fail
So there's this site called Ning that allows people to create subject-specific social networking sites in a flash.
For the longest time, they had a visual-only CAPTCHA with no audio alternative and no obvious contact form by which users with vision impairments could contact someone to be signed up.
Recently, in order to improve their security, they changed their CAPTCHA system from a home-grown one to ReCAPTCHA, which has accessibility features built in.
So, naturally, in incorporating the ReCAPTCHA into their page layout... they removed the link for the audio version. Despite the fact that it would not have been much effort to include it, and despite the fact that it's a whole lot easier than rolling one's own audio CAPTCHA.
No, really. See for yourself. (It does, incidentally, show the audio link with JavaScript turned off-- but some Ning forums, naturally, require JavaScript to be turned on in order for the site to work at all, which makes this a very klugy workaround indeed.)
And of course, there's still nothing in the FAQ about what to do if you can't see the CAPTCHA. This is the closest thing, and honestly, I don't think opening firewall connections to *.ning.com will make the image any more readable to a screen reader.
For the longest time, they had a visual-only CAPTCHA with no audio alternative and no obvious contact form by which users with vision impairments could contact someone to be signed up.
Recently, in order to improve their security, they changed their CAPTCHA system from a home-grown one to ReCAPTCHA, which has accessibility features built in.
So, naturally, in incorporating the ReCAPTCHA into their page layout... they removed the link for the audio version. Despite the fact that it would not have been much effort to include it, and despite the fact that it's a whole lot easier than rolling one's own audio CAPTCHA.
No, really. See for yourself. (It does, incidentally, show the audio link with JavaScript turned off-- but some Ning forums, naturally, require JavaScript to be turned on in order for the site to work at all, which makes this a very klugy workaround indeed.)
And of course, there's still nothing in the FAQ about what to do if you can't see the CAPTCHA. This is the closest thing, and honestly, I don't think opening firewall connections to *.ning.com will make the image any more readable to a screen reader.
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But when you're using a CAPTCHA system that has accessibility features built in, and people have been complaining about this basic accessibility issue for two years? That's just FAIL.
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The question of accessibility is such a hard one for some people to engage with and I don't know why. I wonder whether part of it is a defense mechanism ("But I'm a good person! I didn't mean to make this inaccessible. So I'm in the wrong now and - AUGH!") which is really unhelpful to everyone involved. If something is inaccessible, and you really didn't think of it, the best response is to feel bad for a brief moment and then do whatever you can to fix it, in conversation with the person who pointed the problem out. At least, that's what I've discovered.
Sigh.
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