Hi Tony,
You know I was always brought up to understand that it is a noble and a
good
thing for one to apologise.
I must apologise myself if I took you up wrongly in your opinion but maybe
early Mondays maybe are not such a great ideas for sending such emails!!
Now I usually read over very carefully a couple of times articles I come
across that I think would be of interest to fellow listers.
I do thankfully work and am fairly busy otherwise. It does take up an
amount
of my spare time collating such articles; it is not done willy-nilly I
assure you!
I sent the article on Captchas more for ideas from people, to see what
they
thought! Perhaps I should have mentioned that in a forwarding note!
Let people have a reasoned debate on issues!
Captchas did apparently assist that man in that article!
I am not saying whether I am in favour of them or not!
I will need to hear and read more on the matter from professionals in the
area like yourself and others.
Is there a policy from Vics on Captchas?
In the access for all you mentioned, for example I am using a computer
with
speech. Now Jaws would be of no use to a deaf-blind person; Don't know
how
a person with no arms could use a computer, but I'm sure it is possible!
You know if we all were to wait to have access for all ideally, no
disabled
group would get very far on in a lifetime.
I emphasize I am in favour of access for all!
Now could we all have a reasoned debate on the matter?
Perhaps I might even be educated!
Anyway normal transmission should resume!
All the best,
Tony Sweeney.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Murray" <tony@xxxxxxxx>
To: <vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 8:45 PM
Subject: [vicsireland] Re: Javaa Scripts
Hi Tony,
I must apologise. If you felt my negative comments were directed at you,
then let me assure you I never meant them to come across that way.
The article, as I said, in my opinion is not a good one. Captchas, by
their
very nature, are a bad idea. As far as I know, there is no real way of
having a fully accessible instance of one. If people such as web
designers,
project managers etc read such an article, they may think that having the
additional audible clip is the accepted and fool-proof solution. It is
not,
and I don't think Captchas will ever be truly accessible.
My point was, and I do apologise if I didn't put it in the best way I
could
have, creating this bolt-on supposedly acceptable accessibility fix and
sticking it on to a technology as a whole, i.e. Captchas, that will
probably
never be usable to many disabled people is not to be encouraged in the
least. The whole area is bad news.
Given that you didn't initially comment in favour or against the article,
I
felt I had to. This was to eliminate any ambiguities as regards our
position as a society which may arise, especially when someone searches
our
email archives.
This is not my list, this is our list. I'd urge you to continue to use
it;
I've told you before that you are a valued contributor.
To finish, I will say once more that I'm sorry if I offended you in any
way.
I feel strongly on this subject, as it effects us all as Internet Users.
If
my language was over the top, I do apologise.
Cheers,
Tony
----- Original Message -----
From: "tonysweeney" <tonysweeney1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 3:39 PM
Subject: [vicsireland] Re: Javaa Scripts
>I feel your reaction to be ____________way over the top
> Surely something is better than nothing till we get the inclusivity
> "design
> For All" we all seek!
> Pity you couldn't have given a more reasoned response!
> I am not speaking for the article writer but his peace seemed
> reasonable
> enough under the circumstances.
> I doubt that anyone would be so stupid as to think that an article
> forwarded to your list would necessarily be the opinion of Vics!
> Surely all thoughts and opinions should be discussed with respect and
> in
> a
> civilized manner!
> Why do you not contact the editor and article writer giving your
> opinion
> there?
> You will have no worries about me forwarding articles to your list in
the
> future because I won't be!_____
> I am also seriously considering not renewing my membership when it is
due
> around again.
> Disgusted.
> Tony Sweeney.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tony Murray" <Tony.G.Murray@xxxxxx>
> To: <vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 9:21 AM
> Subject: [vicsireland] Re: Javaa Scripts
>
>
> Hi,
>
> I don't think the below article is particularly helpful to anyone, and
> it's
> message is skewed in my opinion. To be honest, I'd prefer not to see
this
> kind of stuff posted on our list, as I'd hate to think that VICS would
> support recommendations like the below.
>
> "captchas can be made accessible by using audio clips in addition to
> images
> to verify users as human. Some sites, like LiveJournal.com, already do
> this."
>
> Yeah, Right!
>
> - What about deaf/blind people?
> - What about those using single channel soundcards? (Jaws won't speak
> while
> the audio clip is playing in this case)
> - What about people using magnification and who have no soundcard? (I
bet
> those distorted images are pretty tough to make out for someone using
> something like Lunar)
> - What about someone who may have cognitive difficulties?
> - What about those with dexterity problems?
> - What about someone who just can't really type that quickly?
>
> Hardly 'design for all'. Captchas = bad. I don't know how you would
make
> them truly accessible, but the below suggestion is fairly pathetic.
There
> must be an alternative solution to the use of Captchas.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Tony
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "tonysweeney" <tonysweeney1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "vics" <vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2007 2:20 AM
> Subject: [vicsireland] Javaa Scripts
>
>
>> Chicago Defender, IL, USA
>> Friday, February 09, 2007
>>
>> As Web evolves, blind left behind
>>
>> By Tim Spangler
>>
>> The last time Ray Campbell tried to buy Cubs tickets online,
Tickets.com
>> asked him to enter the text in a distorted image in order to prove
>> that
>> he
>> was
>> not a robot programmed to automatically buy tickets for scalpers. .
>>
>> The only problem: Campbell couldn't read the text in the image. In
fact,
>> he
>> couldn't see it at all - he's been blind his entire life.
>>
>> "All I want to do is buy tickets and I can't do that, because there's
>> this
>> verification and they have not provided an audio link to it," Campbell
>> said.
>>
>> For America's nearly 2 million blind or visually impaired Internet
users,
>> problems like these can prevent them from taking advantage of all the
Web
>> has
>> to offer.
>>
>> "The two challenges with Web accessibility are not just being able to
>> access
>> the site, but being able to use the site," said Leah Gerlach, director
of
>> counseling
>> at the Diecke Center for Vision Rehabilitation in Wheaton.
>>
>> Gerlach said the growing use of multimedia video on Web sites creates
>> a
>> significant accessibility challenge, saying that Internet video can
>> confuse
>> the
>> screen reading software that blind and visually impaired people use to
>> browse the Internet.
>>
>> Blind Browsing
>>
>> Blind and visually impaired people use special software called screen
>> readers that "speak" to them in a synthetic voice what is happening on
>> the
>> screen.
>>
>> When browsing a Web site, a screen reader examines a page's code and
>> determines how the page is laid out and what links are on it, then
reads
>> the
>> content
>> of the page to a user.
>>
>> Screen readers rely on explanatory text, defined by webmasters, to
>> interpret
>> images. Because of this, the World Wide Web Consortium, which sets
>> Internet
>> standards, requires developers to define alternative text for every
image
>> on
>> a page.
>>
>> Multimedia content, like Adobe Flash, is unintelligible to screen
readers
>> and is skipped entirely when the page is read. Sites that rely heavily
on
>> Flash
>> should be sure to offer accessible, text-only versions of their pages.
>>
>> Screen reading software uses text-to-speech conversion, machines that
>> translate on-screen text to Braille or a combination of both to
>> present
a
>> Web page
>> to a blind or visually impaired user.
>>
>> The challenges
>>
>> Campbell is a technician at the assistive technology help desk at the
the
>> Chicago Lighthouse, an organization for the blind and visually
impaired.
>> A
>> former
>> software engineer at Lucent Technologies, he now takes calls from
>> blind
>> and
>> visually impaired people across the U.S. and Canada and helps them
solve
>> computer
>> problems and navigate Web sites.
>>
>> Campbell identified what he said are the Web's three major
accessibility
>> problems: graphics without descriptive text, required plug-in
>> installations
>> and
>> visual registration tests, called captchas, an acronym for "Completely
>> Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart."
>> Captchas
>> are
>> particularly troublesome when it comes to accessibility.
>>
>> Why captchas?
>>
>> Many major sites require users to verify that they are actually
>> human -
>> not
>> automated robots. By presenting the browser with a captcha - an image
of
>> distorted
>> text that is difficult for a computer to decode - and asking the user
to
>> enter the text they see in the image, robots can be blocked from the
site
>> while
>> human users who can see the text are given access. Campbell said that
>> captchas can be made accessible by using audio clips in addition to
>> images
>> to verify
>> users as human. Some sites, like LiveJournal.com, already do this.
>>
>> What works, what doesn't
>>
>> Blogging, a growing Internet phenomenon, is still largely text-based
and
>> tends to be more screen reader friendly than other applications.
>>
>> "My experience has taught me that [blogging] is pretty accessible,"
said
>> Campbell, who keeps his own blog on LiveJournal.
>>
>> "Screen readers can handle a lot of the current techniques that are
being
>> used in Web design," Campbell said, as long as designers take extra
care
>> to
>> make
>> their sites accessible. These include avoiding the use of images to
>> display
>> text, providing audio narration for videos and offering text-only
>> versions
>> of pages with multimedia content.
>>
>> As interactive, multimedia Web sites become more prevalent, blind and
>> visually impaired users might find themselves behind the curve as
>> designers
>> forgo
>> accessible pages for glitzy ones and screen reading software lags
behind,
>> said Leah Gerlach at the Diecke Center
>>
>> "We don't drive change. We have to follow it and keep up with it,"
>> Gerlach
>> said. "We're always six months behind cutting edge because we have to
>> be."
>>
>> Tim Spangler is a reporter for the Medill News Service.
>>
>> http://www.chicagodefender.com/page/local.cfm?ArticleID=8439
>>
>
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