[nfbcs] Inaccessible training, again

[David Andrews]

And to add insult to injury, in susie's case, it shows the government 
isn't following its own 508 regulations, by buying inaccessible training.

Dave

\At 11:17 AM 2/12/2013, you wrote:
>Hi Everyone,
>
>Funny you both would bring up such topics this morning. I am working 
>on such courses right now with lots of flash. Then there were times 
>I was supposed to go into simulation. Now simulation really didn't 
>work. They want to use the theory of tell me, show me, and finally 
>let me. As you know, I work for U.S.D.A. and that doesn't really 
>help. I'm venting too. At least the person in charge of training 
>knows of these problems and is allowed to sit with me from time to 
>time. There are so many courses offerred in our electionic learning 
>I would like to take.
>
>Susie
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Steve Jacobson
>Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 11:09 AM
>To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
>Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Inaccessible training, again
>
>Tracy,
>
>Do you know what the software that is being used is called?  I am 
>dealing with a similar problem here and getting nowhere.  I have had 
>a couple of cases where the reason for the course was for me to just 
>press a button to acknowledge I had read some documents that I had 
>read, and the button was not at all accessible.  When I complained, 
>reasonable accommodation was seen to be having a co-worker press the 
>button for me.  That worked in the short run, but what about the 
>long run?  I have had no luck getting the name of a contact outside 
>of my employer which is what I really need to see what can be 
>done.  However, in my case, a good deal of the problem is with 
>FLASH.  In one course, the problem was that all buttons that were 
>used in the entire course remained visible to Window-Eyes, JFW and 
>NVDA.  The TAB key even jumped to them.  However most would do 
>nothing when pressed because they were not part of the current 
>window.  There could easily have been 100 unlabeled buttons of which 
>maybe five were active, and the others did not show visually.  I 
>have another set of courses where I figured out that the button that 
>goes to the next frame which has a label of "next" is identified as 
>"Close" by screen readers.  This isn't a problem once I figured it 
>out.  Some of my courses display PDF documents within the course but 
>apparently provide their own inaccessible PDF viewer.  Sometimes I 
>can get these documents separately once I find the person who wrote 
>the course, but it all takes time away from my job.  In short, I'm 
>with you completely but don't really know where to turn.  Adobe will 
>tell us that FLASH can be made accessible and they have all kinds of 
>information as to how to do it.  Developers will tell you that Adobe 
>puts all of the burden on them.  Okay, so I'm venting, too.
><smile>  In my case, most courses have been accessible for me where 
>I work until the past couple of years, so I'm seeing the 
>accessibility slipping away.  The problem is that nobody realized 
>that what they had done was accessible because one doesn't complain 
>about something when it works.  In the old days, when there were 
>instructors for classes, I could often get by with taking careful 
>notes and perhaps reading just a little from the material.  I might 
>just study a couple of diagrams with the Optacon.  However, we not 
>only don't have instructors any longer, we are required to take many 
>more courses, some for legal documentation purposes.  Some courses 
>are such that I would have to get security clearance for a reader, 
>and the workload is so unpredictable, it isn't a great solution, 
>especially when this wouldn't have to be a problem.  Running into 
>this kind of thing as well as the problems you and I have mentioned 
>with respect to computer update screens, and even what I see as 
>flakiness with screen readers in certain applications just gives one 
>an uneasy feeling about our progress.  There has to be a way to put 
>some pressure on some of these developers, and if we can get our 
>TEACH act passed, it might help in that some of these developers 
>probably develop some on-line courses for higher 
>education.  However, in a large company, this kind of thing is very 
>frustrating.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Steve Jacobson
>
>
>Best regards,
>
>Steve Jacobson
>
>On Tue, 12 Feb 2013 11:36:54 -0500, Tracy Carcione wrote:
>
> >I was recently assigned some online training at work.  It's always been
> >inaccessible, but I thought I should give it a try and see if somehow
> >they had changed things.  Nope, still inaccessible.
> >It's so frustrating, because it's almost accessible, except that there
> >are lots of unlabeled buttons, and, when they ask a question designed
> >to test my knowledge before moving on, it's displayed as a 
> picture, with no text.
> >At which point I'm stuck, and have to stop.
> >I've complained to Human Resources, to Training, and to some VP in
> >charge of web-based training.  I just left feedback on the site, trying
> >to explain the problem.  I really don't know what else to do.  If they
> >really want me to take this course, they'll have to assign someone to
> >sit with me and do it, and the boss doesn't want to do that.  So I 
> get no training.
> >I'm not sure what I'd actually learn from the training, but I guess
> >I'll never know.
> >And to add insult to injury, right on top of the training website it
> >says "empowering people".  Well, not blind people.
> >I'm just venting my frustration, though if anyone has some idea, I'm
> >open to suggestions.
> >Tracy