Dear all Access Indians, Software giant Google has been petitioned by J.P. Shandra, a blind user, to make each of its products accessible for people with visual disabilities. The petition, posted on global consumer campaigning site Change.org, identifies that the company is failing to keep up with its competitors on accessibility. While Google has made significant steps towards improving the accessibility of some of its applications, including Gmail and Chrome, Shandra says Google fails to integrate the needs of vision-impaired users into its product development. Shandra identifies the social network Google+ as an example of a product which has been released to the public with inaccessible buttons and form fields. "Vision-impaired community is tired of hearing accessibility features are coming in updates. They must be there from the very beginning. Stop treating your vision-impaired customers as second-class citizens," said Shandra in the petition's description. "Moreover, stop treat ing them like they don't exist at all. We have the right to live a productive life like everyone else," Shandra asserted. Conversely, Apple incorporates the accessibility into the development of its devices and software, making its products the first choice of the most blind and vision-impaired users the world-over. "Apple designs their products with accessibility in mind right from the start. Even if the execution isn't perfect, the intention was clearly there," Shandra remarked. According to the World Health Organization, there are 285 million blind/vision-impaired people worldwide. This represents a significant market which Google is failing to reach. At the time of writing the petition on Wednesday, 22 May 2013, it had 125 signatures backing Shandra's representation, but many more are needed to exert pressure on Google to change its policies. If so many of us want to prove ourselves as champions for the cause of accessibility, let's not hesitate to carry the torch for our rights of accessibility and back Shandra by signing the petition to Google. Warm regards. David Richards.
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