Hi Neal,
I completely understand your point of view on this matter, and I
respect your input, but I still disagree with some of the things that you have
said about my response to Leo's question as to whether or not social networks
were usable by blind people. In my opinion these services are accessible to
us. Does that mean that they are 100% accessible? No they probably aren't. I
do believe that 100% accessibility is what we should all get just like our
sighted counterparts, but it is my belief that this is a bit unrealistic.
Remember we are a minority section of the population and these services really
probably do not give the blind computer user a second thought, even though they
should.
As for your comment about setting up an account with one of these
services, it is true that this can be a very aggravating thing for the blind
user to do, but because of spammers this is not going to change. Are the audio
screen Captchas awful? Of course they are, but they are designed that way for
a reason, and that reason is not to make it harder for us blind users to sign
up for their service, audio captchas are hard in an attempt to keep a robot
computer from being able to sign up for these services. I know that you are
probably aware of this, but I thought that just in case you weren't I would
explain this.
I would also like to have an easier way to solve these screen captchas
but at the moment there really isn't a good solution, unless you use Web Vissum
which is a Firefox extension you just have to do the best that you can with the
captcha.
I went back and listened to my conversation with Leo before writing
this message in an attempt to see if I was missing something, but I still
cannot see what it is that I said that you have an issue with. Could I have
been a little less enthusiastic with my "Absolutely" remark? I guess so, but
again, I was not on the radio to talk about the accessibility of these sites,
and when Leo asked me the question as to whether these social networks are
"USABLE" by blind people, I answered him with as honest an answer as I could
think of right on the spot.
One more thing that I would like to say on this matter is that I am not
on the radio very often, so I was a little nervous, and Leo Laport is probably
someone in the technology field that I really look up to and I was a little in
awe of the fact that I was talking to him.
I think that now we have said all that there is to say on this subject
and I suggest that we just agree to disagree and move on.
Scott Rumery
On Jul 10, 2012, at 4:02 AM, Neil Barnfather - TalkNav wrote:
> Scott,
>
> Thank you sincerely for replying, firstly, for absolute clarity it is not my
> intention to start any form of mass criticism or, flaming, of you and what
> you said to Leo.
>
> I appreciate the full context and listened twice through before writing to
> the list.
>
> I'm still not completely in your line of thinking when it comes to
> phraseology over what is, and what is not, accessible, usable or operable by
> a blind user with a screen reader.
>
> Sure, Face Book, Twitter and Linked In all can be used, but this is with a
> major emphasis on can, and not, are easily, or, easily done so by the masses
> within the blind world.
>
> How for example do you even open an account with any of these three, the last
> time I checked, all three use screen capture, which even when offering an
> audio option, these are outrageously poor quality and to be frank, require
> the patience, not to mention hearing, of a god to manage to decipher.
>
> Now once you have your account opened, sure its possible, with time,
> patience, constant adapting and learning to figure how to use such services,
> but, they do very little to assist us, and I struggle to believe for a second
> that any of the major social networks have even considered our user group.
>
> Now, you rightly stat that this was not the purpose of your call to Leo's
> show, and, indeed again rightly that I myself am free to contact him. I have
> done so before on a range of issues, even to discuss Lemonade of all things.
>
> The thing that I take note, and to an extent, exception to, is in your tone
> and mannerism within the context of the conversation, what I heard was a
> blind person telling a hugely influential internet and online presence
> commentator that these services are all usable.
>
> now you and I may have one definition for usable, you might say that usable
> simply means, with a hole load of ball ache, and a huge degree of screen
> reader experience and knowledge you can use those services, but, to the wider
> population and sighted user, you can bet your bottom dollar that they took
> such phraseology and terminology to convey that these services are not only
> usable in the widest definition, but, with a modicum of ease and simplicity,
> such was the nature of your answer.
>
> This was just my view, and as a blind lobbyist and commentator on our
> community, not to mention someone who has a considerable experience in the
> internet industry, I believe quite strongly in this stance.
>
> Kindly.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Neil Barnfather
>
> Talks List Administrator
> Twitter @neilbarnfather
>
> TalkNav is a Nuance, Code Factory and Sendero dealer, as well as an Apple
> iOS, Macintosh and Android accessibility specialist. For all your
> accessible phone, PDA and GPS related enquiries visit www.talknav.com
>
> URL: - www.talknav.com
> e-mail: - serv...@talknav.com
> Phone: - +44 844 999 4199
>
>
>
> On 10 Jul 2012, at 00:44, Scott Rumery wrote:
>
>> Hello Neil,
>> I appreciate your comments but I think that you are maybe missing some
>> of the context of my conversation with Leo. Is it true that some of these
>> social networks are a bit problematic for us blind people to use? Yes they
>> can be, but I think as a blind person that uses them on a daily basis that
>> they are usable, and I believe that Leo's question was not if they were
>> totally accessible, but if they were able to be used by blind people.
>>
>> Could I have gotten on my soapbox about some of the inaccessibility of
>> some of these sites? I could have, but remember that this is a radio show
>> and my time with Leo was coming to an end.
>>
>> Remember my call to Leo was to discuss using social networks to build
>> an audience for our business that we are trying to get started, not to
>> discuss whether or not we as blind people can use all of these sites. As
>> for my answer that they are absolutely accessible, I meant that they are
>> accessible in a general sense of the word, not that they are completely
>> accessible.
>>
>> I hope that this clears it up a little, and if you want to talk about
>> the inaccessibility of these services then you are more than welcome to give
>> Leo a call yourself this weekend to talk to him about it. His show begins
>> at 2:00 P.M. Eastern Time on Saturday and goes until 5:00 P.M. Eastern Time.
>> It is on Sunday afternoon as well at the same time. His toll free number
>> is 1-888-875-637.
>>
>> Scott Rumery
>> On Jul 9, 2012, at 6:11 PM, Neil Barnfather - TalkNav wrote:
>>
>>> I was surprised in fact to hear Scott so readily and easily suggest just
>>> how usable and accessible Face Book and other social media sites and
>>> services are.
>>>
>>> This to me was a prime opportunity to really lay out on the table to a core
>>> sector of the internet community, and Mr. Leo Laporte himself, thee tech
>>> guy, just how dam lazy, lousy and poor many web-sites, online services and
>>> applications truly are… and Scott just said, oh yeah, sure they are
>>> accessible and all but completely usable.
>>>
>>> The majority of folk would even argue that opening an account with many of
>>> these services is hell on earth with screen capture etc, let alone the
>>> myriad of unlabelled buttons, poorly laid out tables, difficult to navigate
>>> interfaces and UI's, oh, not to mention, Face Book's complete
>>> inaccessibility of their iOS App…
>>>
>>> I would have focused on that, well Leo, let me tell you, some of it works,
>>> but when we say works, we mean partially, or that with a little guess work
>>> we can figure it out, but, the truth is that Face Book, Linked In, Twitter
>>> etc could do way, way more to help us…
>>>
>>> To my mind, and I'm sorry if this is taken harshly, Scott had a prime
>>> opportunity to really state for the record to a hugely influential person
>>> in this field just how bad things are, and failed to do so…
>>>
>>> I'm sure that the promotion was good etc, but, what we need to be doing is
>>> outlining to these people our predicament and what we need them to be doing
>>> for us.
>>>
>>> for example, check out the, stress not yet completed, www.TheOEF.org
>>>
>>> its just my view...
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Neil Barnfather
>>>
>>> Talks List Administrator
>>> Twitter @neilbarnfather
>>>
>>> TalkNav is a Nuance, Code Factory and Sendero dealer, as well as an Apple
>>> iOS, Macintosh and Android accessibility specialist. For all your
>>> accessible phone, PDA and GPS related enquiries visit www.talknav.com
>>>
>>> URL: - www.talknav.com
>>> e-mail: - serv...@talknav.com
>>> Phone: - +44 844 999 4199
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 9 Jul 2012, at 00:20, VaShaun Jones wrote:
>>>
>>>> On this Saturday's episode of The Tech Guy podcast Leo Laporte spoke with
>>>> Scott Rumery of our firm about the importance of social media in business.
>>>> Leo is a tech luminary and pioneer of podcasting with over 30 years of
>>>> radio and television experience. He is the founder of the TWIT TV podcast
>>>> network and currently has over 25 shows on life, technology and law. We
>>>> commend Scott for his initiative to bring this type of exposure to the
>>>> firm and we are proud to have him on our team.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Click to listen to the full dialog between Leo and Scott.
>>>>
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>>>
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