[nfbcs] Inaccessible training, again

Tue Feb 12 17:17:40 UTC 2013

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

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