[Nfb-science] advice needed on how to deal with unresponsive software company over accessibility issues

[Amy Bower]

Hi All - I would appreciate your advice on how to escalate an issue with The
Mathworks, creators of Matlab software. Matlab is one of the most widely
used data analysis software packages in science education and research.  I
have been using Matlab for more than 20 years. I have had many accessibility
issues with the product working compatibly with Jaws/Magic and/or Zoomtext.
In years past, Mathworks seemed to make some effort to address
accessibility, with information in the release notes on how to make the
product accessible to screen readers. Since Matlab is a Java application,
the fixes usually revolved around using the right version of the Java Access
Bridge and adding some path information and special files.

 

Recently we (my IT consultant and I) installed the most recent version of
Matlab (64-bit version, R2013b) on my laptop with 64-bit Windows 7.  It
doesn't work with Jaws (I don't have Zoomtext installed anymore). We know
that the latest version of the  Access Bridge is bundled with Matlab (not
always the case in the past), so we haven't made any adjustments or added
any files (like the accessibility.properties file).   There is absolutely no
documentation on accessibility for screen readers with this version , nor
has there been for the last few releases (there are usually 2 per year).

 

We contacted someone at Mathworks who had assisted with accessibility issues
in the past (Monica Wang), and she forwarded our case to someone in
technical support. After a couple of back-and-forth e-mails, the technical
support person says in short, "we expect it to work but we haven't tested
this version of Matlab with Jaws" and "I'll pass this on to the development
team" and (most infuriating) "if we find that addressing accessibility
issues will have a significant impact, we'll address it".

 

I'm not an expert on accessibility rights, but my understanding is that if a
company sells software to the federal government (which I'm sure Mathworks
does), they are required to make their product accessible to persons with
disabilities. Am I correct? If so, could anyone point me to documentation
that I could take to Mathworks to make my case? I'm ready to "make a federal
case" out of this if need be. It's been too many years, too much effort to
gain access to a mainstream professional tool that all my colleagues use,
and to see accessibility to Matlab going backwards is just too much. I
really want to get their attention.

 

Suggestions?

 

Thanks.

-Amy

 

 

Dr. Amy S. Bower

Senior Scientist

Department of Physical Oceanography

MS #21

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Woods Hole, MA  02543  USA

Voice: 508-289-2781

Email:  abower at whoi.edu

Fax:  508-457-2181

WWW:  http://www.whoi.edu/scientist/abower