[nfbcs] Inaccessible training, again

Tue Feb 12 19:47:51 UTC 2013

Hello Suzie and everyone,

    And make that Flash Player Updater easier to disable particularly if 
it's causes problems on your machine when it runs. We're having issues with 
it when it runs on our Windows 7 machine.

Peter Donahue who prefers to tell software when to update not when the 
applications feel like doing it!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stanzel, Susan - FSA, Kansas City, MO" <Susan.Stanzel at kcc.usda.gov>
To: "NFB in Computer Science Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 1:04 PM
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Inaccessible training, again

I sure wish I had some hints. It seems like Adobe should do more to make 
flash accessible. On some of my courses they don't even use customary 
keystrokes we all know. You can't do a list of links because nothing looks 
like a link. I'm not sure what I will do in my retirement, but I will not 
mind leaving the daily struggle. As part of the section 508 team here I am 
really thinking of filing. At the moment I am just dreading my struggle with 
Pearson Vue to make the accommodations for a Java certification test. Steve, 
Curtis said you have had some dealings with them. Is that true?

Susie

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tracy Carcione
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 12:28 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Inaccessible training, again

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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