[nfbcs] What Do You Do about Inaccessible Websites for Which the Customer Service Is Dumb

Tue Feb 19 00:21:53 UTC 2019

If this is the CEO or something like that, I would agree that you should give it a try. And the situations I was in, I did not have any such contact. I would also suggest finding other blind people who use this website to also make those reports. I am having the same issue you were having right now, except with the Goodreads app. I signed up for it so that I could get recommendations of books, but the portion where you get recommendations of books is not accessible. I cannot flick, I cannot move my finger up and down the screen to hear the different options, and I can't turn the page. There is no heading or anything either, so I can't go by headings. Then on the website, it is not very intuitive, or at least I can't figure it out, how to give a book a rating, or tell it that I already read it. I have dealt with and accessible apps before as well, and I contacted Apple accessibility, and they really weren't that much help except for one of them, I was able to get a refund for the app. That really didn't help me though because I wanted to be able to use the app, not get a refund for it. I honestly don't know of any entity that has voluntarily cared about accessibility without a lawsuit coming out of it. I wish I did, but I don't. I'm not saying it can't happen though. But if you had other blind people with the same problem in the company wasn't responding, you could go to the media with it and other things if you wanted. If you have to do that, it will not be good for your anxiety if you have that because it will be very public, and there will be a lot of people who try to say that it is your fault, that you are entitled, and other things, but it might be very effective in getting the website to be accessible just as long as you didn't read any comments or anything. If you had enough people, you could also try approaching the NFB and saying, we have all of these people who are not happy about this, we have contacted the company, now what should we do? Or maybe you will get lucky and contacting the CEO will work. I just think that you need more people. I would do it, but I don't use this website. Also, someone on another thread it got something called an audit report. I don't know how he got that, but it is very helpful, and you should probably try to get one if you can. Can't just say that the website is not accessible for it to really be effective. If you have the audit report and you can point out each and every problem, that will have more of an effect because if you just say that it is not accessible, they can pretend to be ignorant, say they don't know what you mean, and say that they don't know what to do. Probably, a lot of people on this list would know what they should do for specific problems like you could come back and be like, they are saying they can't do blah blah blah for example. Then, you can find out what is causing all of the problems. You don't have to know anything like HTML or anything like that. You just have to know how to understand the situation well enough. How would you find other blind people who are using the website and having trouble or if you want to use it and can't? I have no idea. But if the website is national for example, those blind people don't just have to be in your area. They just have to have experience with the website work with not being able to use the website. I feel like the odds really aren't very good because companies really don't seem to care about our civil rights unless legally forced to do so, but you never know.

Sabra Ewing

> On Feb 18, 2019, at 5:03 PM, Brian Buhrow via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
>    hello Nicole.  You hav a serious issue with nextdoor's web site.  I'm
> not suggesting you call just any phone number, I posted the names of
> officers of the company in hopes that followup searches might yield useful
> contact information.  And, in fact, searching for Sarah Friar, the CEO, did
> yield some potentially useful links, like her twitter handle.  I also found
> an e-mail address, press at nextdoor.com, which won't be your last stop, but
> might get you started.  I get that you don't want to take legal action, but
> I certainly suggest escalating your issue up the chain of command, and, at
> this point, that means sending your complaint to any non-support contact
> you can get.
> 
> -thanks
> -Brian
> 
> On Feb 18,  3:26pm, "Nicole Torcolini" wrote:
> } Subject: RE: [nfbcs] What Do You Do about Inaccessible Websites for Which 
> }    I don't think that they have a phone number, and, even if they did,
> } I seriously doubt that it would help.
> } 
> } -----Original Message-----
> } From: Brian Buhrow [mailto:buhrow at nfbcal.org] 
> } Sent: Monday, February 18, 2019 3:21 PM
> } To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
> } Cc: Nicole Torcolini; buhrow at nfbcal.org
> } Subject: Re: [nfbcs] What Do You Do about Inaccessible Websites for Which
> } the Customer Service Is Dumb
> } 
> }    hello Nicole.  My suggestion is to search the nextdoor.com web site
> } for contact information, i.e. their address and phone number, and call them
> } directly.  They're based in San Francisco, so I imagine you'll be able to
> } find some contact information based on that.  If you can't find any contact
> } info, e-mail me and I'll see if I can dig some up.
> } Using their support mechanism, as you've discovered, isn't sufficient, so
> } now it's time to start using out of band mechanisms  to get in touch with
> } them.
> } 
> }    To start, here is a list of Nextdoor's officers. Searching on these
> } names should yield some e-mail addresses and possibly some phone numbers.
> } 
> } Hope this helps.   Let me know if you want something more.
> } -Brian
> } 
> } 
> }    Sarah Friar, CEO
> }    Sarah is Nextdoor's Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining Nextdoor,
> }    Sarah served as CFO at Square, SVP of Finance & Strategy at Salesforce,
> }    and lead software analyst and Business Unit Leader at Goldman Sachs.
> } 
> }    Mike Doyle, CFO
> }    Mike is Nextdoor's Chief Financial Officer. Before joining Nextdoor,
> }    Mike served as CFO at Despegar, the largest Latin American travel
> }    agency. Mike has also held leadership roles at eLong, Expedia,
> }    Teledesic, and GIC.
> } 
> }    Ali Jafari, VP of Business Development
> }    Ali is responsible for Business Development at Nextdoor. He was
> }    formerly the VP of Partnerships at Twitter. Prior to Twitter, Ali
> }    worked in a variety of leadership roles  at Shutterfly, Ask.com, and
> }    Excite at Home.
> } 
> }    Prakash Janakiraman, Co-Founder and Chief Architect
> }    Prakash is Nextdoor's Chief Architect. Prakash previously served as a
> }    Director of Engineering at Google. Prior to that, Prakash was at
> }    Shopping.com, Epinions, and Excite at Home.
> } 
> }    Sarah Leary, Co-Founder and VP of Marketing, International, and
> }    Operations
> }    Sarah leads Nextdoor's marketing, international and operations teams.
> }    She previously served in product leadership positions at Epinions,
> }    Shopping.com, and Microsoft.
> } 
> }    Lauren Nemeth, CRO
> }    Lauren oversees global revenue across Nextdoor's advertising and local
> }    business lines. Lauren joined Nextdoor from Turn where she also held
> }    the CRO position. Lauren also held sales leadership roles at URX,
> }    AppNexus, Google, and DoubleClick.
> } 
> }    John Orta, CLO
> }    As Chief Legal Officer, John oversees all aspects of the company's
> }    legal and risk teams. Before joining Nextdoor, John was at Metromile
> }    and SVP & General Counsel at OpenTable.
> } 
> }    Bryan Power, Head of People
> }    Bryan is Nextdoor's Head of People. He was most recently Chief Human
> }    Resources Officer at Yahoo. Bryan held a similar role at Square and
> }    prior to that spent eight years at Google.
> } 
>> -- End of excerpt from "Nicole Torcolini"
> 
> 
> 
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