[humanser] Inaccessible software

[Ayoub Zurikat]

Greetings my NFB family,
Can you please be so kind as to give this email a moment of your attention. I will try to be brief and concise.
I am a therapist in training, and just a few weeks ago I started my practicum. The internship site where I am training uses one specific software to take case notes, progress notes, to contact insurance, and to save client history. However, the software is not accessible by any screen reader. It is very old, I’ve tried apple’s screen reader, Microsoft screen reader, JAWS, NVDA, and even one or two less known and kind of obscure screen readers. Finally, I contacted the developers, and the main programmer told me in no uncertain terms that they are aware of the issue, and that making the software accessible is not a priority.
The software and even the institution that has developed the software is a federal funded program. Some of the supervisors at the internship site have asked me to check if the developers of the software could be legally compelled to make it accessible, given the fact that they use federal funds. Could anybody please shed some light on the issue.
Please note that I do not use braille, I can only use the screen readers.
Waiting for your feedback.
Blessings