accessibility_fail | FUCK YOU, GOOGLE!

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Current Music: Big Roy and the Twigs - Snow Globe

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FUCK YOU, GOOGLE!

So I am wishful of obtaining a second Gmail account, since my mail email is used for communicating with family, and for a myriad of reasons, I am forced to be permanently invisible on chat, and that makes me sad. Also, I'd like an email address that doesn't use my legal name in the handle for my internet stuff. So, I go to the sign-up page and try my usual options (mathsnerd, mathsie), only to find that they're both taken. Okay, no problem. I start trying logical workarounds to see which ones are available.

Oh, wait, what's that, Google? After trying more than three names, I have to go through CAPTCHA to prove I'm a real person? Okay, that's kind of soon, but whatever. Gee, you sure scrunch those letters together and make them all wavy so that I have a real hard time figuring out what the hell you want me to enter...

Huh, okay, I've tried eight times, Google, and I can't seem to read it well enough that you're satisfied that I'm a real person. And while you offer a "read-aloud" accessibility option for the CAPTCHA down below for submitting the form (which, incidentally, doesn't work in Chrome, yeah, you know, YOUR BROWSER!), for the CAPTCHA to keep trying different handles you conveniently don't offer any alternate options.

So, in conclusion, FUCK YOU, GOOGLE, AND FUCK YOUR UTTER LACK OF ACCESSIBILITY ON THIS PAGE. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Right now you're not living up to your usual standards. And I'm seriously wondering why I bother with Gmail accounts.

No love and a fuck-load of frustration,

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Yeah, GMail is where I once encountered this CAPTCHA image after my fourth attempt to remember a forgotten password:

A jumble of letters in a red script that is completely unreadable.

I understand why they do what they can to keep GMail secure from fake accounts, but they are really lacking in options for accessibility.

Yeah, they all looked like that! Sorry, Google, but NO CAN READ. And if you're not going to give me an audio option, you fail at accommodating me in getting a second address with you. Grrrr....

For what it's worth, when the audio option does work, you can't hear the digits above the background noise of gibberish speech in the same pitched voice.

I say this from experience. -_-;;

...oh yeah, and the gibberish quite often sounds vaguely like numbers. So I can't tell if the "two" I heard was actually a "two" or part of the background noise. >_<;;

Lovely. Shall we descend on Google Headquarters en masse to kick the CAPTCHA developers in the genitalia to express our ... displeasure?

ARGH!

Seriously, you'd think they might have done just a bit of usability testing on this... both the visual and audio versions.

Heck, someone else did a survey showing that the audio CAPTCHA is made of fail, but it's not as if Google will listen...

Actually, lobbying Google about this issue isn't a bad idea at all. I wonder if this is something we should do.

I would be willing to donate spoons to the cause (I use a lot of Google stuff on the web and am QUITE displeased about this), if people are willing to work in a group. I am, however, on the wrong side of the world to do anything in person (sadly). ;)

Yeah, actually showing up at Google headquarters is not really viable for me, either. But yes, something online could be good.

*ponders more*

Ahem. I know some Googlers. And, in fact, have ranted extravagantly with much waving of arms in seedy bars about accessibility at Google. Let me see if I can track any of the little boogers down and see if there's someone specific we could direct our rage at.

Ooh, yes please! And then perhaps we could organise a concerted effort, nay a STORM, of politely worded RAGE (polite nastiness is a specialty of mine) to make the point that they cannot let this go without having their FAIL called out!

I've got some emails out--I'd like to get contact info for someone who works on accessibility stuff. I'm thinking about a well crafted post to point folks at, and a polite email campaign (said post could include an email template, even!).

One person who might be good to keep in mind is Ken Harrenstien, the Deaf engineer who helped design automatic captioning for YouTube. I'm also in the Bay Area, so if we could organise a campaign that resulted in, like, an actual meeting with a Google person, I might be able to represent...

Oh also (look at me replying to myself):

Accessibility archive at the official Google Blog
Google's main accessibility page

Wait a second. From that first link, a direct quote, "we’re serious about honoring our mission to make the world’s information universally accessible and useful." and yet I can't read the goddamn CAPTCHA to figure out if I can get the email address from Google I want? Hypocrites! *is now REALLY Not Happy*

Hem hem. *has plunged deeper into the Google vortex*

There is an accessibility-specific feedback form

*coughs*

Oh God, trying to wade through this....

AND the Section 508 documentation for GMail. I can do this all day.

I believe

trouble is going to try and work up a post for FWD on this so we can get a signal boost going on.

This evening for me, afternoon for you strange West Coasters, and I think way in the middle of the night for Mathsnerd. :)

W00t. Forward momentum for the win. Google is going to be sorry that they angered a German feline with connections in the Dreamwidth disability community. ;)

I'll check in tomorrow. You silly people 6 hours behind us. ;)

Time zones are hard!!!! They hurt my wee head!

Can I quote your post?

Go for it. :D

Okay, filled out (finally!), but it won't let me submit. As in, I click the Submit button, but nothing happens. WTF?

It wasn't just me?? I thought something was wrong with my speakers or something that I couldn't make anything out- I was so frustrated and near tears I just gave up. Luckily by the next day I remembered the password.

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