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Month: August 2019

Another Day, Another Example of Missing Alt Text

Published August 29, 2019 by Kelly Ford

As much as I’m sure anyone familiar with web accessibility doesn’t need yet another example of why alt text matters, as a consumer of web content I certainly am impacted when it is missing.

For anyone exploring cutting the cord, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a handy resource to show you what digital television stations you can receive in your area with an antenna. Navigate to https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/dtvmaps and enter an address, city and state or zip code to get this information. Results are in a table that has headers and such. This is good.

Unfortunately, one of the key pieces of information, the signal strength from these results is a graphic. As you can expect from the title of this post, there is no alt text on these graphics.

Section 508 has been around for quite some time as have the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Proper alt text, again as I’m sure pretty much anyone working in the web environment knows, is a requirement. One can only wonder why something this basic was missed.

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A Request to Librarians: Please Ask OverDrive About Libby Accessibility

Published August 4, 2019 by Kelly Ford

I’m a big fan of public libraries and the wide range of resources they make available. As a child making stops to my local bookmobile or summer afternoons spent at “Story Time Tree” to hear a fun adventure were two of my favorite activities. As an adult, I make frequent use of the eBook services, databases and other resources libraries make available.

OverDrive is as far as I know the largest player in making eBooks available to libraries. In many ways they provide a quality service but I’d encourage every librarian to fully understand the bargain you are making when you use OverDrive.

Would your library tolerate an author or other speaker coming to give a talk in your facility secretly whispering to some visitors they should not attend the talk? I think not, yet when you invite OverDrive into your facility, that is close to what you are doing.

OverDrive heavily promotes their Libby app as a part of the eBook services they offer. What I suspect most librarians do not know is that for users who rely on screen reading technology, the following is what greets their patrons when the Libby app is launched:

Welcome to Libby! This is a secret message for screen readers. We are working to improve your experience with this app. In the meantime, our OverDrive app is more accessible. You can find it in the app store. We thank you for your patience.

Libby is hardly a new app at this point and it should have been accessible from the start in the first place. This message has been present to the best of my knowledge for close to two years now. My own requests to OverDrive asking for any updates have gone without any meaningful response on multiple occasions.

Accessibility requirements too are nothing new. Nor are the technical details to make an app accessible a mystery. Apple, where this message appears on the iOS Libby app, has a wealth of resources. OverDrive itself by directing users to their older app, claiming it is more accessible, also demonstrates they understand accessibility to some degree.

I’d encourage librarians to ask OverDrive when this app will be accessible? Ask why is this message indicating the app has accessibility issues “secret”. It is beyond time that these sorts of challenges not be hidden away. It is time for them to be fixed and most definitely not hidden.

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