Experience a bookbook™: Ikea in parody, on paper, on line,and live.

Here RantWoman sits, thinking about ways to adapt to possible bus cuts coming down the pike, staying out of the way of NFL circuses downtown, and trying to do her part about global warming by shopping online instead of hitting the road and going somewhere.

Is RantWoman really doing all that or is she just procrastinating, reading some email and clicking on a link during lunch? Whatever RantWoman is doing, it's good news and bad news on the lunchtime procrastination / digital inclusion / wonders of online shopping front.

First, a site full of parodies.
http://www.tastefullyoffensive.com
The site works well enough for RantWoman to get the message, after clicking on a link about Sir Patrick Stewart and the ice Bucket Challenge, that she should please watch the video on Youtube.
--The Good (?) news: other content providers are as baffled as RantWoman is about how to ensure that one's reference to other content stays available through links posted. Topic on RantWoman's mean to figure out list but not today.
--The Bad news: the Sir Patrick Stewart video has no sound track and isnot audio described. RantWoman is not really figuring out the whole Ice Bucket thing anyway, and Sir Patrick's thing with ice cubes and alcohol is also lost on RantWoman. Whine.

The link RantWoman did actually click through to Youtube from:
http://www.tastefullyoffensive.com/2014/09/ikea-parodies-apple-with-new-bookbook.html
The direct to Youtube route


--The video makes RantWoman laugh really hard and again is a wonderful repository of certain hip vocabulary. So even though it's both a parody and shameless promotion of a brand, RantWoman is too happy to post and store.
--The bad news: The "BookBook" is NOT terribly accessible to the likes of RantWoman and RantWoman's many groupies. RantWoman has a high tolerance for looking at blobs and trying to extract meaning for her own interior design dilemmas, but the "bookbook" just does not meet RantWoman's specifications. The problem is made worse by all the verbiage in this video that evokes SOME conceptions of accessibility while completely ignoring the needs of blind customers. Whine. Grumble.

RantWoman is resourceful though. Since the download / upload options suggested in the video above are not adequate for RantWoman, RantWoman did what she has done before: type http://www.ikea.com/ into her browser.
--The good news. RantWoman did fairly quickly find the site for the US. Further, RantWoman LIKES the possibility of getting info in a large number of languages and does not mind sorting to find what she needs.
--The bad news: RantWoman had to sit through more than she cared to of Mr. JAWS interacting in various idiosyncratic ways with the links for all the different languages for places where Ikea does business.The site looks like it should have headings for each geographical division but the screen reader does not find headings. RantWoman fairly quickly lost patience with the idiosyncratic renderings and just used first letter method with the links list (Windows esoterica but POSSIBLY of interest to designers who want to know  how blind people find stuff without wading through a bunch of content they do not care about.)

The site for the US
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/
Had RantWoman even a second longer to procrastinate and pretend shop, RantWoman is pleased to note that, after she found the site for the US, it behaves very well for RantWoman's standards as far as screen reader savvy.

RantWoman also noted numerous strands of content helpful in terms of connecting RantWoman to things she might be interested in or current campaigns.

Plus, if RantWoman were willing yet to take the plunge as far as apps for her smartphone, RantWoman is pleased to see there are options.Alas, RantWoman is not willing to procrastinate any longer today.

Perhaps this is unfortunate. One thing RantWoman would look for in a shopping App is a "Get us out of here" button. See, long ao when RantMom  was very new to Seattle and still recovering from chemo and an interstate move and RantWoman was still figuring out this vision loss thing a lot worse than she is now, the RantWomen made an actual physical trip to our nearby (defined as in the same county but miles and miles away) Ikea store.

The RantWomen walked into the store and basically immediately got lost. There were arrows on the floor. There were clerks who tended to give directions involving a lot of "over there." Somehow RantMom had fixed ideas of where we should go that did not always align with "over there" anyway. Finally, after many rounds of a maze that a rat should get a PhD for navigating the RantWomen made our way to a cashier, bought some Swedish fish and paid for whatever from our shopping list we had been able to find. Then we vowed we were never going back or at least not together. Will either of us change our minds? Stay tuned...!