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Back in college I took a public opinion research course. One of the tasks in that class was the design and completion of a fairly substantial public opinion survey. Part of that involved completion of a minimum of 20 one-hour telephone surveys. I mention that as background because from time to time when callers ring today, I remember what it was like to need to get enough surveys and will take the time to answer all the questions of whatever individual happens to be calling.

 

This evening one of the questions basically said something like, “To the extent the following statements are correct, how serious of a concern would you have about voting for the given candidate?” Then were the expected choices such as very serious, somewhat serious and such.

 

Straight forward enough, mention what might I guess be perceived as the given candidate’s negatives and see how big of a deal they are.

 

The candidates in question are running someplace in Washington state for state representative. I can honestly say I had never heard of either individual and right now haven’t studied a thing about the given election.

 

Earlier in the survey it came out that one of the individuals was “sight impaired”. This was talking about the individual and said something about having worked hard from an early age or some such wording. It was the survey reader who used the term sight impaired here.

 

Anyway, when it came to rattling off the negatives for the individual one of the statements went something like, “The candidate is disabled, not a home owner and doesn’t pay property tax.”

 

Ironically, a negative for the other guy was something about having failed to pay some tax and ending up with a lean on some property.

 

I mention all of this just because it was kind of well, I’m not sure how to classify it, to hear disability tossed out in this context. Oh I fully understand the various reasons why disability was mentioned but I really hope one day we get beyond this kind of garbage.

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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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Today I had the opportunity to answer some of my questions about how Amazon’s Kindle eBook lending program done in partnership with OverDrive and libraries would work. The program announced several months ago entered a beta stage with at least two libraries offering Kindle ebooks to library users. I have accounts with both the Seattle Public Library and the King County Library and opted to try some books from King County’s library. For the Kindle reader I used Amazon’s Kindle for PC with Accessibility Plugin.

 

If you have used other book formats for materials made available through a libraries OverDrive services, obtaining Kindle ebooks is just an extension of the same service. Search for the titles you want, add them to an electronic book bag and then check out. At that point a link named Get for Kindle will appear. Following the link opens a new browser window or tab, depending on browser configuration, to the eBook in Amazon’s Kindle store.

 

You are then subjected to whatever accessibility experiences Amazon offers. For example a button to send the book to the Kindle device of your choosing uses a graphic without alternative text so ends up being read as some variation of “get-library-book-lg-pri._V152369908_.gif” if you are browsing with a screen reader. There are several other instances of missing alternative text on the pages as well. A combo box allows you to choose between Kindle devices you have registered with Amazon in terms of where to send the book.

 

I’m not a regular user of Amazon’s Kindle pages yet so will qualify my experiences with that background. That said from what I can tell it is important that you pick the device at this stage of the process. Amazon has a Kindle management page as well where you can manage all your Kindle materials, including books obtained from libraries but that page seems to suffer from some serious accessibility problems. Each title listed on the management page has a graphic named action that opens options for the title such as selecting where you want to send the book. However, success at interacting with this graphic is highly dependent on how the screen reader or other assistive technology you are browsing with handles graphics with OnClick attributes. There are better practices Amazon could be using here for web accessibility.

 

Once you’ve indicated where to send the book, sync content on the device and your library book will be available. I do not have a physical Kindle and the iPhone Kindle software does not seem to support VoiceOver. So my reading was limited to the accessible version of the Windows Kindle software. This is as I described previously a less than desirable reading experience. Further, given the number of portable reading options available, sitting at a PC is not the way I want to do most of my reading.

 

The King County Library currently offers more than 13,000 books in the Kindle lending program. I do not know if all books are also offered for Adobe’s Digital Editions but of the roughly 30 titles I looked at, all offered both kindle and Adobe editions of the books. You can learn more about Adobe’s efforts on an accessible Digital Editions in an earlier blog post.

 

My overall opinion here is mixed. While I’m pleased to see that the Kindle book lending program does not seem to detract from whatever level of accessibility exists in Kindle Ebooks, it is my hope that as libraries expand offerings in this program, the hard questions will get asked of OverDrive and Amazon about when we will see improved accessibility. Platforms where some accessibility exists have ample room for improvement and there are clearly platforms where Amazon has done nothing to offer an accessible Kindle experience that libraries are now supporting by joining this program. I understand the challenges faced by libraries and recognize the multiple priorities they are working to satisfy. Still, as I mentioned earlier, how we spend public money on technology and the accessibility implications of that spending are public policy questions worth asking.

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Yesterday I reported accessibility problems with the NFL’s Audio Pass service. While the majority of the Flash content remains inaccessible, the NFL has updated the table displaying games to provide links for launching home and away feeds for each game. This brings accessibility back to the level it was last year. This is a positive step but I’d still like to see the NFL fix the Flash content to support accessibility.

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It is I suppose not surprising but still disappointing how frequently leading web destinations fail to pay attention to accessibility. After renewing my subscription to the NFL’s Audio Pass service to listen to NFL games I thought I’d listen to a little preseason action from the Packers yesterday. I’m sure anyone familiar with accessibility can guess the rest of the story. I’ll share the abridged version this time.

 

Using multiple screen readers I tried launching the audio for the game I wanted by choosing a Listen button from a page of games. That opened a new page filled with multiple nameless Flash controls. Audio did start but it was for the home team’s radio broadcast for the game in question. The lack of accessibility for this part of the NFL’s web site isn’t new, as disappointing as that is. Flash has had the potential to be accessible for years and it is unfortunate that the NFL shows such little care for fans who use screen readers that the NFL fails to take advantage of this accessibility support.

 

In previous years, the NFL at least had an option that indicated it was for low bandwidth users. That option allowed you to select home and away broadcasts for each game. That option is gone, with the end result being as far as I can tell that if you use a screen reader you are no longer able to select the audio feed you want.

 

A phone call to NFL Audio Pass support this morning confirms that the NFL is aware of the accessibility problems. I was told that a site redesign was done and that the low bandwidth option was eliminated. I asked about screen readers and was told again that the NFL was aware of the problem and that it was a top priority. I asked for a date when this issue might be corrected and the top priority line was repeated.

 

There’s no real ending to this story. E-mail’s been sent and I’ll do the usual round of contacting, advocating and communicating. I guess I just won’t do a lot of listening, listening that is to the broadcasts I want. We’ll see when the NFL gets around to perhaps adding back the option that allows you to select the audio feed you want in an accessible fashion or better yet making the rest of the Audio Pass experience accessible.

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I’ve written more than once about frustrations with books from libraries and other sources that require Adobe’s Digital Editions to access the content. Today Adobe announced an update with some level of accessibility support in a 1.8 preview to this product. The announcement says in part:

 

Digital Editions 1.8 has enhanced keyboard support, provides additional text magnification, support for high-contrast mode color-switching, and interoperability with the UIAutomation accessibility API to allow screen readers to read eBooks.

 

Take note though for screen readers in particular, Adobe indicates that as of now only Freedom Scientific’s JAWS on Windows and VoiceOver on the Macintosh are supported. Adobe indicates they are working with other companies in the industry to add support.

 

After trying this preview with JAWS on Windows with both a Welcome document included with the software and with a range of books from my local library I have a mixed impression. You can access the text of the books. That said, I’m not sure I’d agree with Adobe’s comment in the announcement that I should be able to read books successfully just yet. Hopefully this experience is improved.

 

In the welcome document, for example, all the text from what would seem to be a table of contents on page 1 is run together on a single line. Further, items that are indicated as links do not seem to have any method for link activation. Moving to page 2 in the same document, I’m greeted by the word “link”, repeated at least 20 times, again all on a single line.

 

Trying more complex documents such as software development manuals, recipe books, poetry and other material where format is important, more often than not, any meaningful formatting wasn’t present. At best tabular data had line endings so each cell of a table was a unique line. In many other cases, text was run together, much like the first page of the welcome document.

 

Reading books that contained little formatting, such as a novel, I was successful in reading text. However, it was easy to crash Digital Editions on demand by simply using a JAWS command to read by paragraph. The key combination is ctrl+down arrow and pressing it caused Digital Editions to crash instantly and disappear from memory. In the software testing world, we’d call this bug a 100% repro.

 

In the announcement talking about this preview of Digital Editions 1.8, Adobe does request feedback. I’d encourage readers to try this preview and give Adobe all the feedback you can. Adobe is also holding a drawing where multiple gift cards to online booksellers will be awarded. Card winners will be announced on July 25, at noon eastern U.S. time.

 

Updated Information as of 7/21/2011

 

Adobe replied on their blog linked here and on Twitter indicating that ctrl+F7 on Windows will present a dialog of links from a page. This key is also listed in the welcome document but see my earlier comments about tabular data not always being presented in a reading friendly fashion. This does work in the books I tried. I would expect to be able to open the links from the content too, much like you can when reading web pages. Link lists are handy but links taken out of context do not always make sense.

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Several years ago I had the good fortune to take a trip to London. I recall how exciting it was to be able to walk around the city using an electronic copy of a travel guide I had downloaded while on my trip from my local library back in Washington State. For someone who has tried probably every method of accessing books around, this was an exciting time. True, the books were in the PDF format but by and large things worked to the point where you could access the books and libraries were just starting to really get into the online book world.

 

All I can say is that it is a good thing I’m not taking that same trip today. Libraries, largely living off public tax dollars, have ruined this opportunity. While libraries continue to make electronic books available, by and large they do so by supporting what has become a completely inaccessible platform with books made available in Adobe’s Digital Editions. The library staff I have talked to say this really isn’t their fault and they are just buying services and books from OverDrive. OverDrive passes the buck and blames Adobe. Adobe promises accessibility in the next version of Digital Editions.

 

Based on reports from the recent National Federation of the Blind summer convention, I’m lead to believe that Adobe is close to delivering on some level of accessibility in Digital Editions. Reports from those in attendance indicate Adobe gave demonstrations of something working here. However, even if Adobe released a 100% accessible and feature-rich version of Digital Editions today, I believe the situation libraries have allowed to exist is an important public policy question deserving of greater examination. Further, searching of Adobe’s web offerings still shows no firm info about anything official on an accessible Digital Editions.

 

Libraries should be held accountable to answer for what they are doing spending public money on such an inaccessible book platform. Based on the little financial data I’ve been able to obtain, I’m guessing OverDrive makes a healthy living off of the money libraries spend. According to representatives from the King County Library System, that institution will spend approximately $150,000 for books that end up being in the Digital Editions format in 2011. The Seattle Public Library was unwilling to detail spending on strictly eBooks but indicated the library would be spending a total of $600,000 with OverDrive for online books in all formats. Imagine the public dollars spent across the United States given what these two libraries are spending as just two examples. Obviously much of the income OverDrive takes in pays for the book content and such but by all impressions I have the company is in no danger of going out of business.

 

At one point the Los Angeles Public Library took a stand and said enough was enough and indicated they’d stop purchasing inaccessible books. So far I’ve been unable to determine any updates on that stand aside from seeing books with copyrights newer than the announcement of such a policy being available on the library’s web site. I welcome any updates people have because at least in theory I think the stand the Los Angeles Public Library took is what every library should have done. Instead all seem to have simply passed the buck and largely missed an opportunity to address the accessibility of eBooks.

 

Sure there is blame to go around and as I say maybe Adobe will finally deliver. One can only wonder how things would have turned out if libraries had turned off the public money faucet to OverDrive when this problem first appeared though. I’d be willing to bet OverDrive would be pressing a lot harder for Adobe to do something. Instead they seem to find it easier to pay $50 for Bookshare memberships for the few people who stumble on the fact that some libraries who have OverDrive services are taking part in a program from OverDrive for such subscriptions.

 

We have choices where our public dollars are spent. The platforms used for electronic books by libraries regressed from something that was working. Libraries should not have tolerated this in the least. They should stand up now and turn off the money. That is what gets companies to listen. It takes enough time and effort to make something accessible that when we reach that milestone we need to guard against steps in reverse. Public spending is one tool we should be using. Companies have the choice as to how they want to invest in accessibility but we then too have the choice where to spend our tax dollars. Libraries really blew an excellent opportunity to stand up for accessibility.

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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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I use several iPhone apps on a regular basis and there are services like AppleVis that do a good job of cataloging the accessibility of iPhone apps overall. That said in the past couple days I’ve started using a couple apps that I wanted to call out because of the potential they represent. VizWiz and Ariadne GPS both show promise at answering questions about what’s around you.

 

VisWiz

 

The basic premise behind VizWiz is straight forward. Take a picture of something you want identified and use the power of technology and social networking to identify the item. The app uses a combination of services and contacts from your social network to return answers. In my use of the app so far, it has proven helpful at answering basic questions with answers returned from IQ Engines and web workers. Note that IQ Engines is what powers a handy iPhone app called oMoby.

 

Ariadne GPS

 

I’ve used this app for less than a day but it strikes me as being very innovative. Of particular interest to me is the ability to explore a map based on touch. My previous map experience was with a couple different apps from Sendero but those were based on keyboard navigation of maps.

 

If you try Ariadne GPS, you’ll want to take a read about all the Features and take note that settings for the app are accessed from the settings option for the iPhone in general and not within Ariadne. There are several items related to the map you can adjust that change how things behave. For example I’ve changed to an advance mode that requires more preciseness for touching objects but in my use makes building a mental model of the map a bit easier.

 

The GPS functionality of Ariadne GPS is also of value. Turning on a monitor mode, you can be alerted to addresses as you pass them. The app also has limited point of interest functionality. You can add points of interest based on current location and then be alerted when you are close to those points.

 

Ariadne is a bit rough around the edges but as I say shows promise. For example when you use a feature knows as Explore Region, you are prompted to enter a street and city. If multiple matches are found, you must select from a list that presents you the street name and distance from your current location. No city names are presented in this list which makes things a bit tough.

 

Also, after using this feature, the app gets a bit confused about your current location. I’m located in Redmond, Washington and used the Explore Option to view Madison, Wisconsin. Now the app tells me my current location is in Redmond, Dane. Note that Dane is the county where Madison is located.

 

Overall

 

I don’t know what the future for VizWiz and Ariadne GPS holds. I’m hopeful we have more development of both apps. Ariadne GPS in particular has captivated my attention because accessible maps and GPS technology can do so much to help us understand our surroundings. If you enjoy technology, take one or both of these apps for a spin. VizWiz is free and Ariadne GPS a $2.99 purchase.

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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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