![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
A special kind of accessibility fail
Oct. 22nd, 2009 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
codeman38So 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.