Yeah, that's one barrier right there

[codeman38]

http://www.insightintodiversity.com/

Apparently the latest issue of this magazine (viewable through the "INSIGHT Digital Issue" image under the header "Current Issue") includes several articles about barriers to people with disabilities.

Not that anyone who has a disability that prevents someone from accessing Flash would know anything about this, though, because the only way to actually view the articles is through a Flash applet. Without any graceful degradation, either-- if there's no Flash plugin installed, you just see a blank gray screen.

(I have no idea if the Flash-based viewer is screen-reader accessible on Windows, incidentally-- I only have a screen reader installed on Mac OS X, and Flash does not implement any accessibility APIs on Mac. But given that it's also impossible to navigate by keyboard, I seriously doubt the developers paid any attention to accessibility APIs.)

Edited to add: I've e-mailed the magazine to point this out to them. Will let everyone here know if I get any reply!

Edited again to add: I did indeed get a reply, pointing out that a PDF is available on the Previous Issues page. Which, of course, I never would've thought to look at, since I assumed (a) the current issue wouldn't be there, and (b) the other issues would also be in Flash.

Comments

[elf]

1) The PDF is labeled "summer2011.pdf," not "Insight into Diversity q3 2011.pdf" or some other name that would tell you what the file is after you've downloaded it.

2) It's almost 9mb. People on dialup don't need these insights.

3) It has no metadata--title, author, subject & keyword fields are blank.

4) Has bookmarks, yay!

5) Has tagged text, yay! (Tagged images: no, of course not. Why would we add text nobody sees to all those pictures in InDesign?) I haven't dealt with PDF screen readers for almost a decade, so I don't know how well InDesign manages at making tags. (I know it makes for text that can't be exported by the normal tools.)

Articles related to people with disabilities:
A Unique Approach - By Michael Rainey ("NIH uses creative methods to employ veterans and individuals with disabilities"); 2 pages; ~1050 words

The Best Practices of Employers of Choice For People With Disabilities - By Nadine Vogel; 2 pages; ~950 words

Edit to add: Forget all that. While the "previous issues" page has a *picture* of the current issue, it links to the Summer 2011 issue ("Uneasy Street") rather than the Sept/Oct 2011 issue shown on the flash page. Current issue isn't available as a PDF (yet?), although there's a (placeholder?) image for it on the page.

Previous issues have inconsistent naming patterns.

[elf]

Current issue has been added: http://www.insightintodiversity.com/images/downloads/issues/septoct2011.pdf

Disability-related articles:

The Importance of Disability Insurance By Mark E. Konen; 1 page; ~550 words

Disability Inclusion: An Effective Business Strategy for Workplace Diversity By Anne M. Lin and Kathleen Lee; 2 pages; ~1300 words

Moving People Beyond the Barriers By Tanya Odom; 2 pages; ~1100 words.