Technology Frustrations

As many of you that read this blog know, I use assistive technology to access my computer. To be more specific, I use a screen reading program, designed by Freedom Scientific, called JAWS for Windows.

This program has saved my life. It's given me independence, allowed me to participate in society, and offered me the opportunity to excel along side and/or beyond my sighted peers. Long story short, if you want to punish me, take away my JAWS. I would certainly be tormented during the time it's gone.

JAWS has allowed me to maintain this blog for the last three years. Likewise, I've been able to comment on my peers blogs in the same manner as any computer user. However, technology is shifting and becoming more advanced by the hour. And as these new advancements are pushed out on the market, the possibility of me not being able to access certain technology creeps up more and more.

Let me give you a few examples...

Let's start with these visual images that many sites want you to type into the text-box in order to leave a comment on a blog or to sign up for a certain service.
I hate these!!! There just awful!

First of all, have you clicked on the so called audio alternative lately? It sounds a mess! The numbers that I'm supposed to be listening for are being spoken over a bed of weird, mumbling, jibberish, which is almost as loud as the numbers you are supposed to be listening for. So, half the time, I can never get the numbers right. So, I can't leave comments on folks' blogs, nor can I sign up for certain programs on the web.

I challenge all of my sighted readers to click on the audio alternative to the visual captions. Listen, and let me know what you think.

And for those of you that maintain blogs that have those visual captions on the comment section... This is why I don't comment much anymore. I hate taking so much time, going through so many steps to leave a message. I want to show these blogs love, but I don't want to go through drama to do it.

And yes I understand why people have them posted on the blogs. They’re there to block out computer automated SPAM. But it also blocks me out.

Blogger is guilty of this using these ridiculous sounding audio captions. Word Press is better. In fact, I don’t know a Word Press blog that has it on there. And don’t get me talking about these blog platforms that don’t have an audio alternative at all. Those blogs are completely inaccessible to a blind computer user that wants to leave a comment.

Next example...

The voting for the Weblog Awards are going on. And the fact that I'm losing in an embarrassing manner will be addressed in another post... LOL

Well, one of the frustrating things about the Weblog Awards is that the awards site uses Flash to allow people to vote. And guess what, my screen reading program can't recognize it at all. So, I can't even vote for my own blog, let alone anyone else's. I have to get sighted assistance to vote. And that's unacceptable!

After the awards are over, I'm going to send the awards administrator a note to encourage them to create a voting mechanism that is accessible to all computer users. Because at this point, it's not fair.

Now, don't get it twisted... I'm not blaming my embarrassing vote stats on the inaccessibility. I seriously doubt if there is a band of blind people trying to vote for my blog. LOL But as long as there's one person, and that one person could be me, I'm not cool with being locked out. It's out of line.

I'll just stop here. That's my rant for the morning. I don't feel like addressing the cell phone issues right now. Perhaps in another post, I'll let Sprint have it.

Peace out,

AB