Request For Accessibility Testing of a Website

[jazzyjj]

Hi everybody. Subject line pretty much sums it up. I'm wondering if anyone could test out the following website for accessibility: http://www.afb.org . I realize that this is probably a loaded request, especially given that accessibility means different things to different people. However, I've been having some issues with some parts of the website and am wondering if other people also experience these issues. I have been trying to purchase a free course from the AFB eLearning Center with no luck. It seems that this site is logging me out constantly, unless I tick the box that says "Remember My Username and Password." Even then, I am sometimes automatically logged out. Please see a prior entry of mine in this comm. I realize this is probably a security measure to protect against spammers and so forth, but the frequency with which it happens seems to be much greater than on other sites. The other issue I'm having is with the online store. It seems that, with VoiceOver at least, the navigation is somewhat off. It wraps around in a loop, but just a few days ago I was able to read a bit of information that was not accessible to me before. For the most part this website with its accompanying portals seems to work pretty well with VoiceOver and the latest version of Chromevox Classic, but I've not had good luck contacting the admins. Thanks in advance for anybody's assistance with this.

Comments

[susanreads]

I don't know how to test the website, but I did find a contact page, which isn't on the main navigation. Scrolling down a long way, it says "If you are experiencing technical problems with AFB's website: E-mail: afbweb@afb.net." Perhaps you already found that and not having good luck contacting the admins means they didn't answer ...

[cesy]

Given their aims, it's odd that it's not smooth with VoiceOver.

Trying to sign up, it wouldn't play nicely with LastPass, which is a sign that they've done something weird.

[zdashamber]

You've seen for yourself that their site isn't accessible enough, but I'm happy to validate your experience also! I was checking it out on Chrome with Voiceover on Mac and there were some odd choices (tabbing on a dropdown menu sends you through its links instead of going to the next dropdown menu, alt text for purely decorative images, alt text for icons on buttons that had meaningful labels already)... And some signs of insufficient QA (at one point there was a non-visible link that read as "14"). And some fails, IMO; like when you go to a new page, or follow a skip link, focus doesn't automatically land on something that explains where you are.

But then I tried scrolling and suddenly Voiceover took me on a tour of the site, stopping at each swipeable thing... Which is a very weird and offputting behavior that I've not encountered in a year of occasional Voiceover use. And now that keeps happening. It's super-broken.

[jazzyjj]

Thanks everybody for your help. That's really weird, because their blogs seem to be updated regularly. I saw a few days ago that I was once again able to edit a reply I had posted on their message boards, which I hadn't been able to do for quite awhile. But now that functionality seems to have disappeared again. An uncle and aunt of mine were just in town a couple weeks ago and I was asking them about this. They recently retired, but both worked as orientation&mobility instructors and he as a job specialist in another state. My uncle told me that several years ago, he and a colleague of his were working with a group of students at a summer youth program. They wanted to log into CareerConnect, one of AFB's portals. But it kept on logging them out. So obviously these issues have repeatedly been ignored. You'd think that a website like this would be updated more often, and wouldn't have all these issues. I am going to call them and see what's up, and if that doesn't work I'm giving up. I'm planning on taking more courses from the Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired anyway. I've done so before with good results. They're great about updating their stuff.

[jazzyjj]

Hi folks. I'm replying here again to let y'all know that I just sent another message to 2 people, 1 of whom is a press contact at AFB. Yesterday I received an email from them indicating that they are now partnering with the American Printing House for the Blind, an organization in Louisville, Kentucky. This is one of those strategic partnerships things to supposedly improve stuff, so I guess only time will tell. Update: I was doing some editing in my journal on Friday, and decided to pay another visit to the section of AFB's site where they talk about accessibility and go through several things related to that. I noticed right away that the introductory video now has a YouTube player embedded in addition to their own accessible player. Low and behold this video actually worked each time for me. So I guess someone over there is listening. Perhaps I'll try and purchase the online course again. But this smells to me like progress, even if only that one video works better.