Kindle for PC, software that’s supposed to allow you to read the more than 360,000 books Amazon touts as being available for the Kindle is now available from the online retail giant. Disappointing, albeit not surprising, accessibility seems to be lacking.
Trying the application with JAWS,
Window-Eyes, NVDA and even Narrator produced nothing meaningful. JAWS was silent as I tabbed around beyond announcing a title of the opening screen telling me to register the software. Using any method of access there was nothing else perceivable to me from the application. Window-Eyes only announced “custom control” as I tabbed around. NVDA simply said “pane”. Narrator announced a few more window names when I did a full screen read with crl+shift+space but this was still of no meaningful value as tabbing or trying any other interaction still produced silence.
Hunting around on Amazon’s web site I found no mention of accessibility for the software. Again disappointing but not surprising I suppose.
I really think Amazon is blowing it. They offer TTS on the actual kindle, but yet the menus aren’t accessible. And now they’ve come out with an app for the PC and it doesn’t work with screen readers. I just don’t think they value our money, or maybe they don’t think we’ll pay for the books. Whatever their reasoning, I think they are failing as a company.
This is really disappointing. I know that as an author, I don’t intend to offer my book on the Kindle until it’s accessible. Amazon has such an opportunity to really open up our access to books, and they are really messing up to put it mildly. As a company, they need to do the right thing.
Thanks for reporting your findings, I am glad to see coverage of this issue!