Archive Not Accessible to the Sight Impaired or Screenreaders

[Guest Luinil_Telcontar]

Hi. My name is Samara and I am severely sight impaired. Because of this, I use a screen reader; speech softwar that reads the screen to me so I know what is on it. However...the AFF archive isn't very compatible with it, and here are a few reasons why.

The dropdown links like the Author Tools and New and Archive links on each page do not work with a screen reader. We are forced to use a very unreliable curser to attempt to navigate where we want to go. A simple remedy of this could be adding a combo box with links to the author pannel, the archives and anything else really vital. It doesn't need to link to every single thing, but a combo box is much easier for a visually impaired person to navigate. Right now, I have to favorite my author pannel, and then whenever I want to go to it, I need to go into my favorites, open the pannel that way, do what I want to do and then open the favorited link hosting the archive I was reading in. It is VERY tedious.

It would also help if the site had headings, labeling what they are representing. It is VERY difficult to navigate a site that is just text all squished together. It means the screen reader needs to read through every single thing just to get where I want to go.

Another feature that would make the archive more accessible is the signing up feature. There is a captcha image that needs to be filled out. At least, there was the last time I checked. But there is no audio captcha accompanying it. This means all blind people living alone as I am are barred from AFF simply because they are not ABLE to sign up. It's a real hinderance on online independence, but that's just my own opinion.

If I think of any further ways in which you guys can improve this site to make it more VI friendly, I will let you know. I do understand these changes can't be made overnight, but I beg you to consider them. I know you don't mean to be unfair to the visually impaired, but it's really a loss when we spend an hour trying to navigate around the site just to read a single story.

Thank you so much for your time and future help.

Yours truly,

Samara

PS. Demon Goddess, Jaxxy told me to post something here when I was talking to her on AIM. If I'm posting in the wrong place, then please forgive me. I'm not very familiar with forums and where the links to certain topics/posts really are. Oh, Jax also said there would be an e-mail, and if you still want that as well, I can send it.

Thank you again for taking the time to hear me out.

[DemonGoddess]

There is NO captcha option in the archive. Never has been. That's been strictly a forum feature. I'll have to check and see if the audio option is turned on for that, or even available for the forum. We're already looking at setting up a captcha/recaptcha system for the new stuff as it is. It's much more secure, and will allow things such as anonymous reviews, where the user must be a person to leave the review. Cuts way down on the spam activity.

As to reworking the scripts and how they draw in the archive, we are actually in the middle of rewriting the whole thing anyway. So, we (manta2g and I) can see what is possible and what is not possible for this as well.

It seems to me that what we may end up having to do is something similar to the lofi function for the forum. What that does, is make it all text based. It's there for a number of reasons of course, access speed being one, compatibility to other software being another, as well as making it friendlier in special circumstances.

You have to understand that not only is the archive software old and out of date, the company that originally made it no longer exists. So, anything we do to it, whether new scripts, updates and improvements, are all something that we have to code up from scratch.

Oh, looked up the interpreter software that you use (JAWS) and found that it has a new update where using Firefox will make it so you can browse more easily. Until we've got everything else done, that may be the way to go for you. Not just for here, but elsewhere as well.

In any case, yes, Jaxxy told me to expect to hear from you. I'd actually like the email and/or IM, because that will help me for the notes and whatnot I'll need to have set up insofar as needs go for sight impaired. The more details I have at hand, the better it is for us when we get to the programming.