a11y

Mike Gifford (mgifford) and Everett Zufelt are addressing a major accessibility issue for the administration interface of Drupal 7. If they had help from someone with JQuery skills, they could make significant progress. If you think you can help, check out http://drupal.org/node/467296.

The other day I posted to the accessibility group on g.d.o and was asked to solve a CAPTCHA. As a screen-reader user, posting in an accessibility forum, I was quite surprised.

Now, I was made a little less frustrated when I noticed that the CAPTCHA included an audio alternative. However, the audio is sufficiently unclear that it was a challenge for me to solve on the first attempt, and I cannot imagine the challenge it would be for someone who is hearing impaired.

In short, audio / visual CAPTCHAs, even when used together, are a poor accessibility practice.

I have been loosely involved in web development for 12 years. Over the course of this time I lost my sight due to a degenerative eye disease. When I started using a screen-reader I realized that navigating the web can be very difficult for persons with disabilities, and was somewhat disturbed with all of the coding mistakes that I had made over the years that may have contributed to this problem.