What A Wonderful Group The White House Is
The BBC reports that the Blind Federation slams Captcha security test
The National Federation for the Blind says its members are unable to sign an e-petition calling for printed material to be more accessible to the visually impaired because of “Captcha” security.
A Captcha is a graphic or sound of a random word or number users must key in to prove they are human.
The petition, on the White House website, has received just 8,200 signatures.
The White House says the site complies with US accessibility standards.
The principal requirement for any ‘accessibility standard’ is that something be accessible. If it isn’t accessible, then the ‘standard’ is worthless. That, of course, ignores the reality that the use of a web site already makes the process inaccessible to millions of Americans who have no access to the Internet.
Instead of getting defensive, why doesn’t someone admit that there apparently is a problem, and do something to fix it. That is probably too much to HOPE for with the current White House.
2 comments
Yeah… That’s pretty well SNAFU for this administration! It’s too stupid and cruel to even call it a joke.
It was probably done on purpose too, I very much doubt it was an accident.
They got hit with a spate of robo-signed petitions and went with Captcha. At one point the graphics were so bad that I tried the audio, and it is distorted too. I get some spam, but they have to work to get by my plug-in, so it isn’t a major problem to delete it. Closing comments after 30 days was a major help.
If they wanted to be truly accessible, they could be, but they don’t want to make the effort.