[nabs-l] Seems we lost an ally

Jedi loneblindjedi at samobile.net
Tue Jan 3 06:00:54 UTC 2012


I'm with Ashley on this one. I've played around a little with the new 
download system. From my early observations, it seems like it's just 
not that intuitive at the best and terribly inaccessible at the worst. 
I need more time to play around with it to see exactly where the 
accessibility issues are if any. As to the site, it's definitely more 
image-ridden than it used to be. And yes, I agree that the name change 
is reflective of political correctness rather than inclusion.

Respectfully,
Jedi

Original message:
> Antonio,
> What are the problems? Do you use jaws? I've tried to figure out the
> download; it took me a while to learn the old way, and now they changed it.
> I'm not the most patient with technology, keep in mind. If you have a cd
> player, you still can order daisy cds, but now that humanware no longer
> offers the little daisy players; vr wave, vr vibe and vr classic,  more
> probably will download. I still have my old vr wave and thankfully it works!
> Since as you said downloading is not friendly and a Daisy cd player is IMO
> easy to use and simple.

> Humanware recently released a new victor reader player, vr strattus, which
> both plays those daisy cds and downloadable books from many places like nls
> and learning ally.

> I encourage you to write learning ally. Many are disappointed. With changing
> their name, it seems they changed their mission to focus on learning
> disabilities without identifying them as disabled, for politically correct
> purposes. Tell them to still include blind people and that blind people have
> depended on them for over 30 years since they started. Don't let them forget
> us and be specific as to your accessibility challenges. Stating something is
> not accessible won't help.

> Also IMo, their site is more hard to navigate. More images and complex
> organization. Like no longer can you see the book catalog from the main page
> and when you search books you cannot read the edition/publisher anymore
> without clicking on something extra. So I see like ten books with the same
> or similar name and it takes longer to figure out what to pick.
> frustrated,
> Ashley

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Antonio Guimaraes
> Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 8:35 PM
> To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [nabs-l] Seems we lost an ally

> Dear NABS members,

> It is more than obvious to me that the new Learning Ally download
> features fall short of offering blind screen reader users the services
> we've come to know in previous years.

> Today I experienced at least an hour of frustrations trying to use their
> new and improved program for downloads. I have listened to their You
> Tube video explaining the process, and then reached out to people like
> you for some feedback.

> There are several reports that blind readers can not use Learning Ally's
> download features.

> I am not a happy scholar. I am writing to find out if you too have come
> up against issues with the download service.

> The NABS division and its membership should not accept lack of access
> from an organization that has long been at the forefront in providing
> access to recorded texts for blind users.

> Your experience will only help confirm some of the reported issues, and
> hopefully result in rectifying what must certainly be an oversight on
> Learning Ally's part.

> Sincerely,

> Antonio Guimaraes




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