[nfbcs] Inaccessible training, again

Tue Feb 12 18:27:37 UTC 2013

I was thinking about something Steve said.  When there were actual human
instructors, I could get them to make things accessible, or at least to
try.  I think it's hard for one person to stand next to another and say,
"No, I don't care about your problems at all." And, if the trainer was
writing on the board, I could ask him or a classmate what was written,
usually.  What's so frustrating about these online courses is that, not
only are they inaccessible, but I can't find anyone to talk to about it
who has the power to do something about it. There's no accountability.
There doesn't even seem to be anyone who's remotely interested.
Tracy

> 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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>
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