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With the loss of the Milwaukee Brewers to the eventual World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship series now behind me, I used a rainy Saturday afternoon to update my MLB At Bat app on the iPhone. It is never too early to dream of sunny Arizona skies and spring training 2012. A pleasant surprise greeted me when I launched the update.

 

One of the accessibility issues I detailed in this app dealt with player statistics reading simply as commas with VoiceOver. I’m please to find that this issue has been corrected and now the statistics are available as well structured HTML tables that work with VoiceOver reading commands. Thanks to the development team for this improvement.

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Major League Baseball (MLB) released an update to their At Bat iPhone app today. All I can say is what a disappointment. While they did fix an issue with buttons to indicate radio stations when playing audio missing names for VoiceOver, as near as I can determine none of the other major accessibility bugs, such as those I detailed recently, have been addressed.

 

The ironic thing is that the issue of station buttons being nameless is something MLB broke two app updates ago. Taking the glass is half full perspective one I suppose can be appreciative that MLB fixed what they broke. But the fact that basic things like button names were broke in the first place has to call into question MLB’s claims that they are taking accessibility seriously. Fixing what was working because poor attention to accessibility broke it is not progress. Failing to address fundamental problems like player details on the At Bat roster pages reading is nothing more than comma after comma, well sorry but that’s not being committed to accessibility.

 

What I find interesting is that when I first reported the station name problem to MLB a few weeks ago, they called me several times ensuring me there wasn’t a problem. I ended up having a 30 minute conversation with a phone representative who told me at least five times they knew all about VoiceOver and that there were no problems. Only when I convinced this person to turn VoiceOver on and demonstrated that there was an actual problem, did this person stop telling me nothing was wrong. Ironically the individual who told me they knew all about VoiceOver then asked me how to turn it off because “we are not allowed to keep VoiceOver running on our phones.”

 

I work in the software business. I know it takes time to fix issues and all. MLB has gone out of their way to state loudly that they care about accessibility. I think it is then within reason to expect them to demonstrate this commitment with actions and not just words.

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This year I opted to give MLB’s At Bat 11 iPhone app a try for live baseball game audio. The app works relatively well with VoiceOver on the iPhone and has been a nice way to stay in touch with my favorite teams.

 

While At Bat 11 has many positives, accessibility issues remain that range from the completely inaccessible to the inconvenient. It would be nice to see MLB address some of these before next season. I have shared this feedback with MLB according to instructions on their accessibility page.

 

Note that in the following descriptions, all names refer to names as read by VoiceOver on the iPhone. This is a first list of issues I’ve experienced that I’d like to see improved.

 

Team Schedules do Not Read With voiceOver

 

Steps To Reproduce

 

1. Launch VoiceOver if it isn’t running.  This can be found on the iPhone under Settings:General:Accessibility:VoiceOver.  Note when VoiceOver is running, items that activate with a single touch require a double tap to activate.
2. Launch At Bat.
3. In the lower right corner of the app is a button VoiceOver announces as More.  Activate this.
4. Choose teams from the resulting page.
5. Choose a specific team.
6. On the team page, choose schedule and results.
7. Now touch anyplace on the schedule.

 

Result:

 

VoiceOver is not able to read any schedule detail from either list or month view. Further buttons that appear to advance the schedule are nameless.

 

Player Details Reported As Comma

 

Steps to Reproduce

 

1. From the home screen of At Bat, activate the More button in the lower right of the screen.
2. Activate teams on the resulting screen.
3. Select a team. In my case I chose the Milwaukee Brewers.
4. On the team page, select Roster.
5. Now choose a player. In this example I chose Ryan Braun.
6. Now note how the player details are read.

 

Results

 

Aside from headings that include the player’s name, number and position along with things like regular, situational splits and last 10, the entire page reads as nothing more than a series of commas. Certainly this should be improved so the actual details displayed are read by VoiceOver.

 

Data From Multiple Rows Read in Box Scores When Moving By Row

 

Steps to Reproduce

 

1. Locate the box score for a game. In my example I’m using the box score from a May 22^nd game between Milwaukee and Colorado chosen off the scoreboard from the opening page of At Bat.
2. Locate the table that starts with the column 1 item of player. In my example I changed to details for the Brewers.
3. Switch VoiceOver’s rotor setting to rows. This allows you to quickly move down a given column in the table.
4. With VoiceOver focus on the word player, use the sweep down and sweep up gestures to move down the player column of the box score.

 

Results

 

In this scenario, focus is starting at row one column one of the table on the player column header. You would expect the first sweep down to move to row two column one and read the player name. What you should have read is Weeks, 2B. Instead what is read is Hart, C RF Weeks, 2B. In other words, the data from row three, column one and row two column 1 is combine with the data from row three read first and all data read as if it appeared in row two column 1. You can verify this by sweeping right once and then left once where you will find that the Weeks, 2B value is now read correctly.

 

This pattern of combining one row ahead of where you should be with the current row continues as you move down all rows in the table. Switch to the sweep up gesture and you start to hear the player details one row above the current row combined with the current row. So in either case you need to ignore the first player name you hear and know that it is the second name that reflects reality.

 

In my use of VoiceOver to read tables, the combining of data from multiple rows does not appear to be a common problem. So far MLB’s At Bat app is the only place I’ve experienced this.

 

Stadium Map With Nameless Buttons

 

Steps to Reproduce

 

1. From the home screen of At Bat, activate the More button in the lower right of the screen.
2. Choose the At the Ballpark option.
3. Choose a stadium.
4. From the stadium page, choose Stadium Map and Directory.

 

Results

 

The default here is some sort of map. All buttons on the map however are nameless and reported strictly as button by VoiceOver. Having more meaningful names would be a positive.

 

The list functionality in the directory feature is excellent. What is especially nice is that when you are at a game and you choose some of the directory entries, you get details about the entry based on the closest entry to you when there are multiple locations. For example when at a recent Mariners game, I was quickly able to locate the closest hotdog stand to my actual seat.

 

Conclusions

 

This is not the first time I’ve written about MLB and accessibility. I still believe the track record is mixed, and I am surprised to see issues like the comma for data on player pages issue I reported here present for an organization that has taken such a public stand on being committed to accessibility. That is simply something that is broken and easily discoverable with little knowledge of accessibility or VoiceOver in my opinion. It would be interesting to understand how MLB accessibility testing happens to see how issues like the comma issue fall through the cracks.

 

More Details on iPhone Accessibility

 

This is by no means comprehensive but here are a few references on iPhone and iOS accessibility.

 

Accessibility for iPhone and iPad apps by Matt Legend Gemmell – Worth a read just to understand accessibility independent of the operating system. The Myths section of this post is great.

Accessibility – iOS Technology Overview – Apple developer info on all things accessible in iOS.

iOS App Accessibility – Humanising Technology Blog – Another good overview of how VoiceOver works and some basics on iOS accessibility

 

Response From MLB

 

Update:

 

Today, May 23^rd, I received a call from one of MLB’s contacts in accessibility in response to an email I sent that detailed all the issues in this blog post. In that phone call MLB indicated they could reproduce all the issues I described here. The contact indicated that it was too late to address any of the issues for the next release of MLB’s At Bat app due out shortly. I asked when we might see any of these issues addressed and was told that MLB was planning a second update shortly before the 2011 MLB All-Star game that would be the first opportunity to address these issues.

 

I consider today’s response a step in the right direction. Admittedly I have no idea whether the issues will be fixed or not and if they are fixed when that might be beyond what I was told today. But acknowledging the issues are present to me is a start.

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I’ve written here on a few occasions about my frustrations with MLB accessibility. In particular the lack of response to phone and e-mail to the dedicated accessibility resources listed on MLB’s web pages.

 

About 10 days ago I received an e-mail indicating MLB was trying to get in communication with me. I connected by phone with someone about a week ago.

 

While the phone conversation was pleasant, I really don’t feel there is any meaningful update on the item that’s been the topic of my repeated communication here. Specifically, I have asked on multiple occasions about accessibility plans for the At Bat functionality that provides things like pitch speed, box scores and such.

 

Two things the MLB representative did tell me that I’m sharing here with permission were that research into how to make the At Bat functionality was in progress and that MLB had recently hired someone to work on improving accessibility. The representative further explained that they were trying to have things like pitch speed announced automatically with some audio functionality. Interesting I guess but I don’t understand why they don’t start by making what exists accessible before trying to get overly creative and doing some kind of automatic audio.

 

I am appreciative of the communication from MLB but remain disappointed at the lack of progress on making site features more accessible. I understand work has been done on some of the media players so I suppose that’s good. But I believe MLB could be doing more and doing it more rapidly.

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More than a month has passed since MLB.com’s announcements about improved accessibility started making the accessibility circuit. I for one find the organization’s supposed claims to be improving accessibility largely empty and little progress being made.

 

I’ll state up front that I’ve not done any comprehensive review of the full site. Perhaps efforts are happening in areas I don’t use, but in the part of the service I use most frequently and spent money for, there’s been no change. Further, MLB seems dismally unaware that the area even has accessibility issues.

 

Specifically, I purchased a Gameday Audio subscription which allows one to hear the audio from home and away broadcasts for all games. MLB touts a feature called At Bat as new for this year and indicates that At Bat is supposed to include details on the speed of each pitch, live box scores and much more along with the radio broadcasts. Trying multiple combinations of web browsers and screen readers on the Windows platform, this feature still strikes me as100% inaccessible. I’ve heard things may be better on Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod touch but have not independently confirmed this.

 

MLB help on accessibility makes no reference to this At Bat feature. On three separate occasions I phoned a “dedicated” accessibility help line to ask about accessibility of At Bat with the only definitive answer I ever received being no this feature wasn’t accessible and there were no plans to make it so. All three phone responses were more interested in telling me how to play audio than anything else. This despite the fact that I opened each call clearly stating I was currently listening to a game.

 

Assuming you have an MLB.com account with the appropriate subscription, you get to the audio with At Bat experience by going to www.mlb.com/mediacenter and launching the radio feed for a game in action.

 

I made my first attempt to understand the accessibility of At Bat in early April. That was the phone call that yielded the response that At Bat wasn’t accessible and that there were no plans to improve the situation. That’s strike one.

 

Replies from the accessibility community that I must have received some bogus info from MLB prompted a second phone call in the middle of April. That phone call ended with a promise that someone higher up in MLB accessibility would return my call with accurate info about MLB At Bat accessibility. I’m still waiting for that return call. After a month I think it is safe to ring that call up as strike two.

 

My third call happened on Saturday. This time I was told no fewer than three times how to launch the audio from games. Questions about At Bat were once again met with an “I don’t know.” At least there was no offer for a phone follow-up that never happened from call #2. And the accessibility ump says, “Strike three!”

 

We’ll give At Bat another turn at getting a hit. This time I’ve tried the “dedicated” accessibility e-mail address listed within the accessibility info on MLB.com.

 

Good for MLB to have started some effort. I suppose something is better than nothing. But make no mistake, this is a multibillion dollar business that has no problem telling me how much economic activity it is responsible for each time it wants a new stadium built as the public money faucet is opened. Were this a physical building, the equivalent lack of accessibility would be plain and simple a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. So don’t tell me you are unable to find the relative few dollars and time it would take to fix these problems now. This is purely a lack of meaningful commitment. Talking is easy. Doing is showing real commitment.

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MLB has been getting loads of positive commentary in the accessibility community of late. While I’m glad to see the organization step up to the plate as it were and start to take accessibility seriously, it is still far too easy to find basic accessibility issues wrong with the main MLB web site.

 

Take a browse to an offering to play fantasy baseball for example and count the number of instances of text such as images/trans or perhaps mlb/fantasy/wsfb/index.jsp or another variation depending on how your screen reader handles missing alternative text for actionable links. By my count there are at least three instances of this problem and the bigger issue is that the links in question lead to different locations. This is not some esoteric side feature, 3^rd party text or something else beyond the immediate control of MLB. So while I’m delighted to see MLB getting into the accessibility game, I’d like to see basics like these sorts of issues already fixed because they are just so obviously wrong and disconcerting to the basic user trying to sort out where to go on the site in my experience.

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It took me a bit to figure out how to subscribe to only Gameday Audio with MLB so hopefully this saves others a few minutes. Most paths seem to want you to subscribe to the streaming television option. MlB customer support wasn’t overly helpful at understanding that not everyone hovers and uses a mouse.

 

The short version is that if you have an existing MLB.com account, using the link of https://secure.mlb.com/campaign/login_register.jsp?voucherCode=MLBTV_VOCHR&sku=ATBATPCSUBSEA2010&c_id=mlb&keepWfParams=true&flowId=commerce.cart.noUpfrontRegisPurchase&campaignCode=MLBTV_CMPGN should take you to a page that prompts for username and password and then takes you through the ordering process. There is also a Buy Now option on the page if you do not have an existing account that indicates it will allow you to create an account.

 

I reached this destination by:

 

1. Navigating to www.mlb.com.
2. Selecting the Audio/Video link.
3. Choosing accessible gameday audio from the resulting page.
4. Following the subscribe link on the next page.

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