accessibility_fail | Recent Entries

So I was doing orientation and mobility to my new college for next year and first off the lifts don't have braille and you can't actually feel the buttons, fail number one, but then when you go outto the toilets they have gone to the effoet of brailling the word toiet for you but failed to meantion if it is male/female or accessible, if your going to go t/o the effort to braille the wword toilet then one more word won't hurt right?

untonuggan

A local park near where I live has a wheelchair accessible porta-potty as their toilet facilities. (Never mind how easy to use those things actually are. I've never tried as I don't use a wheelchair.)

However, it is positioned right next to the curb, so that anyone in a wheelchair would have to pop a wheelie directly into the porta potty in order to use it. I guess maybe that makes emptying it easier?

Tried to take a picture with my phone but it's all grainy.

deborah

Over in my own journal, I post about my failed efforts to purchase an iPhone. Very short version: I am told that they can't do a credit check without a drivers license. When I point out to them that I have had plenty of credit checks without a drivers license, and lots of disabled people don't drive, doncha know, they hang up on me. Stay classy, Apple!

adrian_turtle

I've come to expect doctors' offices to be accessible. I know it used to be less common...30 years ago, my pediatrician's office was hard to navigate on crutches, and the orthopedist's office looked kind of strange to me because I hadn't seen a clinic designed for people in wheelchairs to get around it. Now I can walk easily (the ankle healed fine. All my ongoing health problems are above the waist), but accessible doctors' offices just look right to me.

This morning, I went to see a new neurologist. The office is attached to a hospital in Cambridge, and it looks like a general neurology practice. There are five neurologists treating adults for epilepsy, migraine, MS, Parkinson's, and stroke. (Possibly other problems, too.) There's a twisty narrow path from the waiting room to the desk for doing paperwork--it might be barely possible to get through it with a cane, if a person is reasonably coordinated and not too bulky (because of body size or winter clothing.) There is another narrow path with sharp corners from the paperwork desk to the exam and consultation rooms. I don't see how a person could manage it in a wheelchair, and it doesn't make sense. Neurologists are supposed to treat people who can't walk. They're even supposed to treat conditions that interfere with walking!

I'm going back. The doctor said she might be able to fix my chronic daily headache. Possibly even reduce my ongoing shoulder pain. Abstract justice can't compete with that. But I don't like it.

sami

(Slightly off-topic, but I'm kind of out of touch with a lot of things right now, and this is really the only disability-related forum I'm a member of.)

There's a BBC Radio 4 Comedy called "Richard Herring's Objective". It's the current episode of the "Comedy of the Week" podcast (which you can get via iTunes, or... I don't know), or it's currently available for one more day on the iPlayer.

From that page:

Richard Herring examines 'The Wheelchair' the representative symbol of disability on disability access signs and asks if there is equal access. He wonders if it is still the case that we see the disability rather than the person.

Written by and starring Richard Herring, with Emma Kennedy and special guest, comedian Francesca Martinez.

Produced by Tilusha Ghelani

The second series of Richard Herring's Objective pokes and prods a variety controversial objects and see if the controversy falls out. Through vox pops, interviews and stand up comedy Richard examines the objects' history, meaning and significance and challenges our assumed logic and stereotypes. Can we reclaim these objects away from their unfortunate associations?

In series one the comedian investigated 'The Hitler Moustache', 'The Hoodie' and 'The St. George's Flag' and in the new series he'll be training his beady eye on 'The Golliwog', 'The Wheelchair', 'Page 3' and 'The Old School Tie'.

I'm listening to it now and finding it entertaining. I was outright delighted by Francesca Martinez asking Richard if there was "anything [he] can't do" and then following that up with the standard set of patronising questions people with disabilities can get. (Martinez is a stand-up comedienne with cerebral palsy.)

I'm not sure "wonders if there is equal access" is an accurate description, though - more "snarks a lot about the fact that there isn't".

Unfortunately, there isn't a transcript available that I know of, which may or may not be ironic - since it is just starting as a purely radio program, I'm not sure.

teafeather

I was very happy to discover that my bank, TCF, has finally caught up with decade-old technology and has replaced some of their ATMs with nonvisually accessible ones. It has tactile labels on everything, and when I used the audio interface, it worked very well. Unfortunately, one of the braille labels has a problem: it's stuck under a protective plastic shield, instead of being placed on top of the shield where the braille would actually be readable. The braille label in question is the one that explains in which direction one should insert the ATM card. I'm planning on scheduling in extra time for my next bank trip to make a formal complaint to customer service. I don't think they'll do anything about it as my previous complaints about incorrect braille labels on the old machines have not resulted in corrections over the past 2 years.

synecdochic

Dear restaurant,

If I ask the server if there's a bathroom that doesn't require me going down a flight of perilous stairs (that only has a railing on one side), and get told no, there isn't, I'm going to be very irked when we bypass dessert to get home because I really have to pee, only to confront the front of house manager on the way out with a snippy, "And what category of ADA exemption do you fall under that you don't have to have an accessible bathroom?" and get told that yeah, they do, it's right around the corner, what, your server didn't know about it?

No love,
The Chick Who'd Been Looking Forward To Dessert To Redeem A Meal That Was Half Fabulous, Half "Auuuugh"

sophie

So, for a while now I've been trying to get in touch with the people behind Damn You Auto Correct! about the inaccessibility of their posts. The site exists to host particularly funny instances of the iPhone's "autocorrect" feature, when one person in a conversation had an iPhone which decided to substitute another word in place of the one they were *trying* to type. Normally the corrections submitted to the site are sexual in nature, but occurring within an otherwise normal conversation.

The trouble is, these *textual* conversations are all submitted in the form of screenshots, with no transcript supplied. Every screenshot featured on the site is pretty much the same from a visual point of view: It's a screenshot of the iPhone's text message conversation view, which shows text messages from both sides of the conversation with your texts appearing in green speech bubbles on the right and the other person's appearing in grey speech bubbles on the left, with the other person's name showing up at the top of the screen and a text entry box at the bottom. And with that, I have described 95% of the images on the site, except for the text - which of course is what everybody's there for in the first place.

So, I tried to see if I could contact them anywhere. Couldn't see a "Contact" or "Email" link *anywhere*. To make a long story short, it turned out that my zoom settings push the "Email" too far to the right and so it disappears from view. (I use NoSquint, a wonderful Firefox extension that saves your zoom settings per-site and lets you adjust the zoom and text sizes independently for your needs.)

So I sent an email about both of these problems, and offered to help with transcription. I gave an example transcription in my email, so that they knew the sort of thing I was thinking about doing. I emphasised that it wouldn't take long to transcribe each one.

No answer, even after I sent a followup email about a month later. :(

It irritates me, because some of these conversations are hilarious and I hate that not everybody can view them!

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.

codeman38

The web site for Maruchan Ramen.

A shining example of how a site can be perfectly compliant with the heuristic "all images must have ALT tags" while still remaining utterly inaccessible. The entire site is an image map of 23 sections, every one of which is tagged "Maruchan, Inc. - Maruchan Ramen Noodles - Ramen recipes - Japanese ramen noodles".

Through a screen reader, it's a bit like listening to Monty Python's Spam sketch: ramen, ramen, ramen, images and ramen.

Edited to add: Oh, yeah, I forgot the best part. There's a text navigation bar at the bottom... each link of which goes to another page whose content is entirely in the form of badly-ALT-tagged images. ::facepalm::

automaticdoor

So! DC has a neat festival going on downtown next weekend! But... the website, http://www.artsonfoot.org/, is completely, 100% inaccessible to anyone who can't use Flash or has a screen reader or anything. (Not to mention those who can't handle constant flashing animation, but I didn't even go there in my voice mail to the coordinator.) There's no text version, no HTML version, nothing. We'll see what kind of response I get back. Sadly, I'm not hopeful.

Current Mood: aggravated

lauredhel

I really, truly, think that no one is supposed to cross a certain major road near me. It's like this super duper divide between the suburbs, and there is some occult reason for keeping it a near-impenetrable barrier. I've posted before about the non-existent kerb ramp at a close-by intersection. So I tried to cross a little up the road, where there are two bus stops, so presumably people might want to cross now and then, to, you know, get to or from work or school or wherever.

Annnnnd…. let's take a look.

view across dual carriageway road to a bus stop. The ramps on either side don't line up, not even slightly.

There on the bottom right of the shot? That's the ramp I'm about to go down on to get onto the road. It's a perfectly fine ramp.

There up at the top left? That's the little bit of connecting path I need to get to in order to cross the other half of the dual carriageway. It's a perfectly good path.

Only trouble is, they don't line up. At all. Not even slightly. So I have to scoot ALONG THE ROAD, this giant major arterial road, quite a ways, to get from one to the other.

---

Bonus douchebags of the day! Different street, same day.

footpath on a sunny day. Two cars are parked partially on the path, such that it's completely obstructed.

codeman38

Actual quote from a job application site, with the only redactions being identifying information:

"In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA), if you have a disability and would like to request an accommodation in order to apply for a position with [company], please call [voice phone number]."

I hope the person at that number knows how to answer relay calls!

service_dog_user

I go to Six Billion Secrets (.com) fairly regularly. I visit some of the other pages in the network as well, but for some reason I'm draw back to SBS. I'm not really sure why I go there. I suppose part of it is a reminder that everyone has problems and the other part is because the comments are often "good drama".

Over the past however long, the SBS website has become increasingly less accessible. When the site recently changed to every post having a different color behind it, that was the last straw. I literally cannot see their website without having an episode. This saddens me, so I wrote a note to the website management. I thought it would be the right thing to do to let the website know why they are losing me as a reader.

Here's how the conversation went:

Me: "I've been reading this site for a while, but it has gradually become less and less accessible. The most recent change, with the color "paper" behind the secrets, is more than I can handle. When I looked at it, it set off my disorder. I wanted to let you know I will not be coming back because of it."

Andrew, the guy who responded to me: 1. We are not done working on a new feature for SBS. What you saw was a technical glitch and not a final product.

2. putting a gun to my head will never help you get your way. At least not with me.

Me: 1. Technical glitch or not, the result will be the same -- a less accessible website that I and many others like me will not be able to use.

2. I most certainly never put a gun to your head, and if you see it that way, then I feel sorry for you. I was merely telling you why I was leaving your website despite the fact that I generally enjoy it. Do what you want with the information; most businesses I know would like to know why they're losing business and if there's anything they can do to help. Since I have obviously mistaken you for a business that care, I apologize.

Andrew: We do care. You get more bees with honey than vinegar. Ask questions, give respectful opinions, and don't threaten is how you will get things accomplished with me and almost everyone else.

Me: I'm not threatening anything. I am not doing anything except informing you that because your website is becoming less and less accessible, I will not be coming back. There is nothing there except a statement of fact. It is not disrespectful to tell you that I cannot go to your website anymore because of a disability. Beyond that, I have no questions to ask. I am not demanding you change your website so I can still use it. I am not asking you to do anything. All I was doing was telling you why I will not be coming back to your website and the reason for it.

Andrew: Threats and statements of facts aren't mutually exclusive.

Me:

threat
[thret] Show IPA

noun
1. a declaration of an intention or determination to inflict punishment, injury, etc., in retaliation for, or conditionally upon, some action or course; menace: He confessed under the threat of imprisonment.
2. an indication or warning of probable trouble: The threat of a storm was in the air.
3.a person or thing that threatens.

I sure would like to know where you're getting any threats from. As I said, it's not "I'm going to leave if you don't do something." The truth of it is "I am leaving because I am disabled and can no longer use your website." There is no threat there. It is a statement of fact. I literally cannot use your website anymore because of my disability.

If you view that as a threat, then I am sorry for you.

Andrew: Either you want to talk to me about ways about how we can improve SBS or you want to fight about this.

I don't care which because I have a lot of things to do currently. But I'm done engaging in the latter.

Me: You're the one who wanted to fight. I gave you the information that your website is less than accessible and I will not be returning to it because of that. You can do what you want with the information. If you want my help with making the website more accessible, then you chose the wrong approach.

I would've been happy to help you improve the accessibility of your website, but not when the very first thing you say to me is that I'm holding a gun to your head.

Brightest blessings.

[/end conversation]

Okay, so I got a bit snarky at the end. But who wouldn't when they're told that they are threatening someone with a gun? I mean, WTH?? I would've been more than happy to work with them on what is making the site less accessible, but instead I'm accused of being manipulative and threatening. I still don't see where I was threatening anything, but the response Andrew gave was far from warranted. It's clear to me that Andrew has no idea what it means to be disabled, and it's even more clear that the business has made no efforts to give their staff sensitivity training, to ensure that websites are accessible, or even how to have decent customer service.

I am beyond upset about this. So much so that I imagine I'm losing my coherency. But I will not sit by while some bully tries to push me around because I am disabled.

I wrote an email to the head of the business. I told him that I don't care what he does with the information and that I am going to share this story on every platform that I can.

jadelennox

Two great examples of accessibility fail from London:

a door to the back entrance of Great Scotland Yard, paint peeling, which contains a wheelchair icon and the sign disabled persons entrance, right above the single step to the door.

A plaque with the wheelchair icon and the phrase Welcome. Touch here for assistance. Next to restaurant which has a step up and a table with a single chair outside the step on the pavement. The plaque is, incidentally, at least 4 feet off the ground and behind a pole.

pauamma

Picture of panel inside train bathroom indicating whether door is locked, using lit symbols of locked and unlocked padlocks, about 1.5x1.5in. Print and braille text reading "door locked/unlocked when lit" point at the correct lights.

Bathroom in train from Stratford to London. Can you tell what's missing?

aamcnamara

Posted over in my DW about my ongoing farce of trying to be allowed to cook/eat food while spending the summer doing undergraduate science research at Harvard University.

Summary: the program assumes their students will eat at restaurants, etc. I informed them of my many food allergies and pressed for kitchen access, which they told me I would have; when I got there, I was informed that lots of people were using the kitchen they had thought they'd put me in and they would find me a different one... but though there were a bunch of things that they brainstormed, none of them panned out even to me being able to go look at the space and see if it would work.

Eventually, at a loss, they asked dining services what to do with me. Annenberg Hall said they could totally deal with my food allergies and feed me on the meal plan with the summer students... until I told them about the fact that inhaled food allergens sometimes causes me to have asthma. Then there were suddenly too many summer school students and they couldn't possibly accommodate my request.

In the meantime, I was left to live in a dorm room with only a microwave and dorm-sized fridge. (For reference: it's been a month since the program started.) Happily, my girlfriend's family lives in the area and offered (super amazingly kindly) to let me stay in their spare room, so I actually, y'know, get to eat this summer. (If sneezily--they have a cat, which is also a slight inhaled allergy/asthma trigger for me.) But I can't help wondering what would've happened if I didn't have somewhere to go.

jadelennox

Went to vote in a special, one question election today. ( you guys know what's coming, don't you? )

treeowl

I was going to a business the other day to repair a machine, and I noticed something rather unfortunate about the parking garage. The garage is divided into two segments: one for Harris Teeter parking, and one for other businesses (there is also a section for residents, which I've never entered). The problem is that if you park in any of the handicapped parking spaces in the retail lot, and if you use a wheelchair, you will likely find yourself unable to get to the elevator without risking your life. There are only three paths from that parking area to the crosswalk. One way will only work if your chair is quite thin and certain parking spaces are empty. One "way" is to magically leap a curb. The last way is to go around and come in as though you were a car, around a blind curve, which would be a great way for someone with a death wish.

jackandahat

They're trying. They're really trying. But after yet another person went on about how autocaptioning was "close enough", I grabbed the last video I'd had open and took a look at just how close the autocaptioning was to what I could hear. (Disclaimer - I am hard of hearing, but I lipread pretty well, so I think I know what they were saying.)

15 errors in 25 seconds of video.

Several of these totally changed the plot, some were just damn silly.

Expanded on here, now with bonus Cosby Show!