[nfbcs] Inaccessible training, again

Tue Feb 12 17:09:29 UTC 2013

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

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