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Advocacy Group For the Blind Slams Google Apps
angry tapir writes "The National Federation of the Blind claims that Google Apps lacks required features for blind people and wants the US government to investigate whether schools that adopt the e-mail and collaboration suite run afoul of civil rights laws. The NFB is asking the US Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division to probe whether New York University and Northwestern University are discriminating against blind employees and students through their use of Google Apps' Education edition."
This is also problem with so many open source projects. They all forget about disabilities and blind people. I've tried to get them to support them, but no one is interested adding such features. That's what proprietary software has done a lot better - they actually do account for disabled and blind people too. It's a major obstacle with open source software, but for example Microsoft and other big companies have generally supported such features.
Blind people designed Slashdot's look you insensitive clod.
Just because a service offered by a company is popular doesn't mean that you can whine that they are violating your "rights" should they fail to make accommodations for your demographic. That isn't discrimination, that's business. If you dislike it, spend your money elsewhere.
I'm a liberal person, but I find it pretty ridiculous that minority groups act like they have a right to any convenient piece of technology that comes down the pipes being tailored to their particular needs.
It's not like they can see the apps anyways! Why do we have to cater everything for disabled people. It makes no sense to me.
they can go be blind somewhere else..
At least gmail have an HTML mode. But I think the problem is that we need better screenreaders more suitable to modern Internet.
From the title I was initially thinking of Android apps since that's more in the news, but that made me think how it's going to be almost impossible for the blind or partially sighted to move to current touch screen technology.
Anyone know of any research in that field?
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
I have a fairly simple solution. Allow the disabled users to use other software. The law requires businesses to make "reasonable accommodations", not change the entire way of doing business. Other apps will integrate nicely with Google Apps.
http://behindthecurtain.us/2010/06/12/my-first-week-with-the-iphone/
Clearly not impossible if companies devote resources to it.
iOS has many features for blind people - apparently it's one of the best machines out there to use.
The touchscreen interface seems particular unsuited for blind users.
How about an arbitrary braille surface: addressable pins under a thin silicone (or similar) membrane? The user interface would of course have to handle finger movements differently since the user would read by fingers.
Actually that would make a pretty badass smartphone/pda for the ubernerd. You could read text messages with your hand in your coat on your screen. Typing would suck less now with tactile feedback. That's the only thing I miss after moving from a mechanical keypad to a touchscreen.
umm... wouldn't it be better to get them to fund an open source project that would provide a "plug-in way"(generic term) for (F)OSS to provide support for the blind?
I would think that this would be a good way to get a lot of pro-OSS advocacy out there, by showing that we care for the less capable. And this could even simplify the (non-G)UI if there were a standard way of presenting information.
The open standard will NEVER happen with *PAA,etc They do not want standards like this, it might coincidently give back "fair use" to consumers. Just look at how hard the EU said it would be to do. but *CTA was fine...
I just heard a news report about this story (they may be blind, but they've got really good press agents) and I don't understand one part of the story. CNN reported that the universities mentioned in the story are "outsourcing their mail and certain applications" to Google.
Is that true? When you use Google Apps are you using a Google product on your own servers or are you actually paying Google to provide mail, apps, etc? I don't know how Google Apps works, so I'm asking you guys. Is Northwestern University (who was mentioned in the story has "outsourcing it's mail to Google") really "outsourcing"?
You are welcome on my lawn.
If I went blind, I wouldn't expect to be able to use computers and the internet, a primarily VISUAL medium. Why limit what can be done to half-ass a method for blind people to stumble around on?
I know this sounds very un-PC but damn, when you have a disability, deal with it, there are going to be some things closed off to you. You'll just have to do what you can.
This is a sig. Deal with it.
Its not their fault. Google is still in beta!
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Blind people lack required features for Google Apps.
If the government (in the form of publicly funded schools) requires you to use specific software then you can't just go and "spend your money elsewhere". You have to use that software, even though it is physically impossible for you to do so, and despite the fact that there are alternatives you could use if allowed. That is what the accusations of violating civil rights are about.
I suppose the NFB's going rate is lower than your average anti-trust congressman's office.
Great savings for Microsoft. ;-)
Send your spendthrift head of state this
Blind people designed Slashdot's look you insensitive clod.
OMG! Ponies!
Google provides an IMAP gateway for all of its mail, including Google Apps.
These people can use any email client under the sun to access their mail, including the vaunted Outlook.
This whole thing seems like a money grab to me.
iOS has many features for blind people - apparently it's one of the best machines out there to use.
Yup. From the first "enable" to the last "write", although "show run" gets a bit boring through a text-to-speech device.
At what point do you tell the disabled, "You have a disability. You are not going to have the same access as those that aren't disabled."?
Honest question.
I have a visually impaired child. We are blessed to be part of a community that helps us significantly with our special needs. But that assistance isn't something that we are entitled to receive. It is a kindness and generosity. The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) doesn't speak for all blind people, and I think that their attempt to leverage the US government and civil rights laws to go after open project software is both ignorant and counterproductive. There are much better ways to handle this issue.
The NFB could try asking nicely. They could try asking someone else to code the functionality, and share it with everyone. They could pay for it to be coded.
But they are in no way entitled to force any third-party to spend additional time and effort coding in added functionality for something they coded.
My son actually coded up a timekeeping application for the iPhone. He is 17, has a blind sibling, and didn't think about making it "ADA compliant". That doesn't make him evil. It doesn't mean that Apple has a right to force him to make his application ADA compliant. This isn't just a Google Apps issue. It is an issue for all open software projects.
The better way to handle this issue is to speak politely with the major open source projects and companies regarding embedding ADA features into the software development kits. Suing Google over Google Apps, that's just ignorant and stupid.
So no one can!
I really don't understand this mentality. Because a small minority of the population can't use someone, we should restrict it from everyone. I'm not saying that people shouldn't make the effort, but sometimes it's just not required, or its too much extra effort. If I had to make a free app blind-friendly, that could be a lot of extra work, so it might end up not being created.
Screw it, we shouldn't even be allowed sight! Everyone should wear blindfolds, else its just unfair!
It was funny watching them take a few swings at it first..
I'm currently working on a couple of government projects that must adhere to the latest accessibility standards, and they include this little doozy: no javascript.
Think about that. No javascript.
HTML was never designed for applications. We have javascript to get around this. No matter how sophisticated the "toolkit" or "framework", it's all still a stupid, ugly hack. But it works.
HTML alone though? Someone needs to pull these people aside and tell them that they've gone batshit insane.
... is the horrendous UIs and the stupid names given the tools.
The best example, GIMP ... a very powerful image editor. The UI is horrendous and hard to use. New user are FORCED to search for info on the web where support is mostly limited to user groups full of jerks that talk a lot of crap while not answering the questions. And the name, although it has meaning ... it is just plain ugly ... not something you want to call a brand.
I have worked with the NFB on projects before, and prior to that when I was contracting at IBM, I was the section 508 guy for my group. I have a decent bit of insight into accessible software development, and push for it's inclusion at my current workplace.
However, realize that the NFB is an advocacy group. They do not care about business needs, or the cost of adding support for screen readers to your application. They could care less that you need to spend 40% of the project costs retooling, or increase the work effort by 20%, in order to support approximately .3% of the population. They simply want it to work for them - as it should be, and the rest is your problem.
So, what's is that problem?
Well, businesses have roadblocks in realizing that providing accessibility standards for your software is a losing proposition - the NBT actively attempts to cloud this viewpoint or strike it down as morally objectionable. However, it is unlikely that the level of effort that goes into producing an accessible application or website will ever show any reasonable return. Additionally, as with all software, the later in the game is is added, the more expensive it is - so retooling an app is worse than the cost of folding it in from the beginning. So we're looking at a big expense with no return - low ROI.
Beyond all this, non-sighted or otherwise impaired individuals are already coping with non-accessible interfaces on a daily basis. They have specialty software that helps them cope with this, and in other cases, there are learned workarounds. Just like a Microsoft product user, they are conditioned to accept the failures, and while aggravating, they can usually accomplish their goals regardless.
So, what are my points?
1) Never agree to retool an existing app (though you can accept submissions)
2) While in the planning stages decide what level of accessibility support you're going to aim for. It's increasingly expensive, especially the QA side where there's a severe demand for accessibility testers. Make a rational cost-based analysis. Some things you get for free just by adhering to strict HTML standards (like providing alt text for your images AND LINKS, or properly labeling your tables with a summary attribute, and column descriptions) for webapps.
3) Don't ever sweat the compliance if it's hard to do at any one point - it's simply not financially worth it. Go for as much as you can. All the rich "web 2.0" features which make the difference between a sale or a miss don't translate well in the accessibility world. It won't help your product if it's accessible if no one is going to use it. Remember - unless the laws change, compliance is usually a 'good to have feature' - not a 'must have'. Prioritize it well.
4) Harsh though it may seem, you can rely on your disabled users to provide their own solutions. Your software is unlikely to be a required resource - worse comes to worse, they can always use something else willing to lose money by supporting specialty groups.
The issue here isn't GMail itself since yes, POP/IMAP access works just fine. The issue here is Google Docs which, by their very nature, have no alternative means of accessing them. Sure, there's the half-assed plugin for Word, but for universities that are so anti-Microsoft, the solution is not acceptable. And seriously, in the 21st century, why should the blind have to still be fighting such stupid battles to just be able to edit a friggin document? As a blind person myself who works in the adaptive technology field, I have no love for Google Docs and will recommend Microsoft Office to anyone I know who uses Windows, relies on screen access technology, and actually wants to get work done. Google has been asked time and again to make their products more accessible, and they have ignored such requests. It's sad when it has to come to these types of suits and investigations, but if that's what it takes to get Google to pay attention, then so be it.
They tried to slam them... but missed!
harharhar
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Looking at those Video, it seems that the problem is more to do with the functionality of the screen reader, which seems unsuited to interactive web apps. I suppose the only real way to avoid this is to have the functionality interface with desktop software that the user is used to. But Google actually does this remarkably well. Gmail can be accessed via IMAP and POP3, Docs can be shared easily via links and downloaded as in standard formats, you can use Google groups with plain old email and Google calendar can also be synchronized with desktop applications. Hotmail didn't even support POP3 until about two years ago.
I guess I'd have preferred a comparison and an explanation of how it should have been done. I would also be more convinced if they mentioned why outsourcing email is a problem when the mail server can be accessed entirely the same way as a university mail server.
If it is open source, then let them add this functionality themselves.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I'd love to be able to increase the size of the default fonts used throughout the apps on my T-Mobile G1.
You need a damn magnifying glass to read e-mails on the thing!
Who is "they"?
Roll up your sleeves and pitch in or STFU.
And Google isn't doing anything to rectify the situation despite the following bug reports: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4547 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3382 and http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5876 Android lacking adjustable font sizes is inexcusable. Android's font size is tiny on small screens. When I installed it on a friend's Neo Freerunner the first thing my mum noticed was that the fonts were tiny. I can choose a different distribution on my Neo Freerunner, but someone who buys an Android phone without root privileges cannot.
Has anyone participating in this discussion actually done web design for accessibility? I've been looking at it for our course management system. It's not trivial, but it's also not difficult. In increases development time / cost, but probably not more than 10%. It's perfectly possible to design reasonable visual interfaces that work fine with common screen readers. A sighted user won't even be aware that it's been done. It's a combination of avoiding some standard pitfalls that a screen reader can't reasonably work around, and putting appropriate labels and tags on everything. A lot of tools are accessible. jQuery has been doing an increasingly good job. The CK editor has as well.
The issue isn't just blind people. Older people (like me, to be honest) sometimes need to increase font size, and would really like it if the web page design doesn't fall apart.
There's no way you're going to get away with saying "sorry, they should know they're handicapped." The law won't allow it, and in my opinion shouldn't. I might feel differently if there weren't reasonable approaches to dealing with it. The big problem is getting web developers to think about it, and to try their software with a screen reader now and then.
http://searchcio.techtarget.com/news/1140155/Massachusetts-CIO-defends-move-to-OpenDocument http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/massachusetts-open-source-fight-becomes-partisan/506 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/top-national-advocate-for-the-disabled-sets-terms-for-endorsement-of-opendocument-format/2163 (among many others)
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Free stuff shouldn't be held accountable. If they want additional support, let them pay for a product that supports them.
I still find it funny that handicapped people so often say "we want to be treated like everyone else" but have no problem parking their sorry ass in the handicapped spot at the front of the store. If you wanna be like everyone else, park your ass in the back like the rest of us and walk/wheel/whatever your way in.
When the web experts wrote their accessibility guidelines they were too arrogant to realize that they knew web techologies but did not know system engineering. So they wrote a really crappy set of requirements by enumerating how to be accessible instead of specifying what accessibility means.
When they wrote those bad requirements many screen readers had problems with javascript so they said you cant use JavaScript. When the law was written it mostly grabbed the W3C's work as was.
The W3C finally rewrote their requirements the right way, but it will be another year or two before the law can be updated with the new specs.
Sincere apologies!
Please ignore previous comment..
I missed the "not" in your statement.
Back to the discussion at hand (or eye):
This is something I've had a hand in for quite some time; and unfortunately the conclusion that I've come to professionally is that it just is not possible to 'enforce' a specific type of behaviour on the current level of technology available used to access the 'net.
It's sad, but true.
Even with good standards there exists means for the standards to be broken. You can't police every site. You can't keelhaul every company and coder that doesn't comply with standards or means to provide for a small percentage of their users.
At best you can promote and support standards which make a service available to all and work towards the majority and the minority enjoying the same services.
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
Google Docs has partially implemented WAI-ARIA roles. Google Reader has full support for it. I'm not blind, but as a curious web developer I have tested them with JAWS. I don't see where the problem seems to be. Modern screen readers work really well with modern browsers and web apps developed with the ARIA specification.
It's also very helpful in making web pages more robust and reliable in different browsers, and reducing the complexity of the web page. This reduces testing costs and improves its stability. It also forces certain types of design, keeping interfaces simple, consistent, and filled with content rather than unstable and unreliable eye candy.
Simple guidelines for webpages for documentation include:
1) No Flash or other proprietary formats.
2) 7-bit ASCII text only. (This can be relaxed for international documentation, but it's helpful.)
2) No Javascript. (It clutters the document, makes it alter content in unpredictable ways, and is historically unstable. It has its uses, for filling out complex forms, but those come at a very real price in stability of the documentation itself.)
3) No font awareness. (bold and italic should be enough: the time is better spent on the content, not selecting fonts)
4) Minimize graphics. Never use an image when a few lines of text will do.
The resulting tools are not beautiful, but they will work after the project is over and everyone is on a new operating system.
I was paralyzed from the neck down in a terrible car crash. Why do I have to give up so much. There are a lot of people just like me who have had to give up far too much. We should all band together.
Why cant we drive race-cars? We should sue automobile companies for not having systems in cars that allow quadriplegics to drive like a skilled Nascar driver.
Why cant I play in the NFL? We should sue them to allow us to do so.
The list goes on and on. And that's not all, think of all of the other people who have it hard just because they are different.
Why cant old fat ladies be strippers. They should sue until there are equal amounts of good looking young strippers and old fat strippers at every strip club in America.
And what about the stupid people? God knows we should be thinking about them (there are so many) Why cant stupid people have jobs in physics or astronomy, why do they have to be pigeonholed into being elected officials? We should sue until stupid people are doctors and lawyers and any other job they want.
And poor people. Why should they be disadvantaged by not being able to buy the same things rich people buy?
This concept of entitlement just pisses me off. Google should not be REQUIRED to make a product that the blind can use, nobody should! This is equivalent to walking into a regular restaurant (full of common/average consumers) and demanding vegan/gluten-free/insert-super-picky-niche-here menu items. You should NOT have the right to call the cops in and force them to make the food you desire.
What the blind (or anybody who has a need for a product) should do is create a voice for themselves as a demanding consumer for a product that doesn't exist and let the industry trip over itself and fight each other to make the dominant/superior product! Make your time/money/effort/usage the product that companies WANT you to give them rather than cramming it down their throat and complaining when they don't swallow well enough for your satisfaction because you're an Apple/Google/Microsoft/XYZ brand fanboy and they 'don't fulfill your needs'.
Stop demanding that others enable you to do something and figure a way to make it happen yourself. Show off your own Rube Goldberg solution of self empowerment with pride and pretty soon someone will come along with a tool that you inspired them to create to simplify your efforts and improve your life.
...most of the internet does not comply w/ blind people using it.
Touchscreen phones are already accessible to blind users. Both android and iphones can be accessed (the iphone normally, the android phone with an added software solution over google's inferior built-in screenreader) via gestures on the touchscreen.
Braille is slow and expensive. External braille displays exist, at a cost of about 100$ per braille cell (letter) and many blind people are either not braille readers, or not fast braille readers.
Integrated screenreaders with the OPTION of braille for people who want to use it (as one currently can on an iphone with bluetooth) makes much more sense. The 1% of blind people who are deafblind can have an add-on braille display, whereas the rest who are not can save a few thousand dollars by buying a regular technology that happens to work for them, instead of an overpriced and inferior "adaptive" technology.
It's open source, meaning you -yes you- can add code to it to help the blind. The blind can even help themselves if they know how to code, and I bet some already do.
This is what I hate about people who view themselves as victims. Blind people are not stupid people, just get off your lazy asses and create the code yourself, or get someone to help you do it.
Complaining about it doesn't help, and you're just making yourselves look stupid and naive.
That is the true power of open source, you don't have to beg someone else to do the work for you, you don't even have to ask, you just get the thing done yourself if that's what you want, and guess what, that's the normal procedure whether you're disabled or not. If you're interested in adding features to an open source project, add them yourself, whether you're disabled or not has nothing to do with it.
I can't see the problem here... No, really, I can't see the problem here!
Among other problesms, one has to sign into Google's web page and pass a captcha challenge before /activating/ the email account. Whether they support IMAP or POP doesn't matter if the account cannot be activated by a sight impaired person.
Most business software doesn't need to be a "real application." It works really well as a web application.
Oh I'm sorry, did that just make it harder to have "equality" for the disabled?
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
First off, not just google apps, but even more so Apple apps....Apple has more of a market, go after them, not google...oh wait...must be Apple that sent this group against google in the first place because they are scared of their competitor....how else would you explain the group goes after the smaller of the 2 major players where a blind man using a phone would get.....oh wait....a blind man using a phone usually uses it because he has a voice, and both google and iphone have voice recognition software built in, case ends there...nothing to see here...move along now.
http://www.slaw.ca/2010/11/22/google-launches-tight-integration-between-google-docs-and-microsoft-office/
With the acquisition of Docverse, Google Docs users can use Microsoft Office instead of the Google Docs interface with most of the advantages of Google Docs with the screenreading support available in Microsoft Office. It doesn't have Mac support, but Macs have their own screenreader which may work with Google Docs.
Preliminary google searches suggest that Voiceover does not work, but that there are similar Office suites that sync with Google Docs on the iOS platform, which would then work with Voiceover on the iPad/iPhone. Android also has a screenreader and similar applications.
At least for the US Federal Government, there's a thing called Section 508 (of the Americans with Disabilities Act) which says equal access must be provided for people with disabilities. So web pages need to work with text-to-voice browsers, pictures contain alt tags, videos are supposed to be closed-captioned, and basically anything that is available to non-disabled people must also be available to disabled people. Something called "reasonable accommodation" is required, which means buying an employee a special input device so they can use their computer is a good idea, but buying a screen reader for every citizen who visits a government web site is not necessary.
My organization provides online data plots. Does that mean we have to provide an audio description of the plot? ("First it kind of goes up to around 10, then down a little, then back up, then wayyy down to -20...") No. If we provide the raw data in a text-readable format, that is considered compliant.
It does not say that everything has to be available in the same way. If the universities offer another product suite for disabled students and faculty, that should be sufficient to comply with both the letter and the spirit of the law.
If you think something like Pine or Elm should be good enough for someone who is blind, then you should believe that it is good enough for everyone at the office.
..this is exactly what everyone does on iOS/Android. Certainly, accessibility isn't their reason for doing so, but if the current wave of mobile apps have proven anything, it's that rich clients aren't going anywhere.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Gmail on the back-end is innocuous enough. But if the expectation is for employees to use the web based Gmail client, then the web based Gmail client should be compatible with the screen reading software relied upon by blind employees.
Here are links for Section 508 Compliance for Gmail and Calendar. The defects at least seem to be honestly self-assessed.
I am sure they might be requiring such a thing, but neither 508 nor WCAG 2.0 forbid JavaScript.
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
So, would you equate the blind expecting access to an email client as unreasonable as blind access to driving or flying? The requirements for web accessible are straightforward. Google should up their game.
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
Here's the text:
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qskp[pkpp[[[[qwk j890w9wn wijwp ms.
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Hello, We just released a CMS for schools. We tried to make it usable by blind and/or visually impared persons, on the visitors side as well as in the content mnanagement. It can be used with a braille reader and/or speech synthesizer and also by persons with a normal visus. First preliminary tests seem promising. And, last but not least, it is OSS/GPL. main site :http://websiteatschoo..eu
manual (features etc.): http://manual.websiteatschoo.eu/
Kind regards,
Website@School Development Team
Dirk Schouten