Just Think of it as pioneering: panning software on accessibility grounds

RantWoman is alternating between work activities and researching everything Omaha in preparation for  #ACB22, the 2022 American Council of the Blind hybrid convention. The pioneering history of Omaha is a good way to approach what RantWoman is about to write about. Let's just say accessibility for a certain grants management suite is way too wild west to be functional for RantWoman.

Before RantWoman pans the Fluxx grants management software on accessibility #a11y grounds, RantWoman needs to say that the grants review process RantWoman just participated in has been tremendously rewarding. The grant applications reflect powerful work going on in Seattle. The other members of the review panels brought valuable and diverse insights drawing on both background and lived experience. There is a statistician in the picture to cut down on possible temptation to obsess over different approaches to scoring. And when what was mediocre accessibility for some applications collapsed completely for others, the person managing the process not only extracted all the materials RantWoman couldn't get to but also heroically did the data entry needed to record scores when RantWoman pretty much threw up her hands about how to navigate an almost accessible score reporting page.

RantWoman will offer some overall observations separately about the application content. Today we're here to pan software. To be fair, the organization using the software promises to follow up about all the issues RantWoman has discovered after this grant cycle. RantWoman is pretty sure the words "Oops. No one thought about that" apply. That bein  accessibility, blind people applying for grants, Screen reader users participating in grants review panels. Should RantWoman go on?. 

Why does RantWoman think that?

 --A fast skim of the top level Fluxx Grant Management home page yields neither a link about Accessibility nor any mention of Accessibility in, say, the About Us page. Not a good sign.

--Next RantWoman decided to ask Google whether Fluxx and JAWS, her favorite screen reader show up together anywhere. Um, no. RantWoman learned something about some kind of Fluxx card game set but that didn't talk about screen readers. RantWoman also didn't venture into the second page of search results, something she would be more likely to do if she were getting paid. 

     Everything is remote anyway, so it's not even a "will work for sandwiches" gig. Luckily RantWoman is a good cook and the need to feed oneself limits the amount of time and energy one has for allowing one's head to explode over all the massive inconveniences of inaccessible software.

--The fact that two fast checks RantWoman uses to see whether a vendor has thought about accessibility came up big fat zeros is why RantWoman decided just to name the product. RantWoman is also happy to spare the next entity who considers the software a civil rights complaint: at least readers know what you are getting into.

--But RantWoman aren't there nice read it to you services like Aira or BeMyEyes? RantWoman is not in love with the whole topic. RantWoman was also unwilling to turn off her screen reader off and spend precious eyeball energy trying to see if the needed navigation would behave with only screen enlargement.

Tech support nerd detail: RantWoman was using JAWS 2018, Zoomtext, and Chrome browser

RantWoman's experiences:

ALL pages hard to navigate with no structure such as headings

RantWoman had to reread a whole bunch of stuff every time she switched to a new grant application. Some portals use a link such as "Skip to Main Content." Others use headings. If RantWoman had a 2-year-old to read the same thing over and over too, the page links might be amusing. For RantWoman they were just tiring. 

some grant applications it was easy to download attached supporting documents; others not. RantWoman thinks other reviewers reported the same issue

As long as RantWoman is chasing functionality with her particular accessibility tools, RantWoman would also love a way to sort the applications she is reviewing either alphabetically or by something like last date touched or read / unread.

In any case, RantWoman is likely to be back next year slogging around in the same portal. RantWoman just hopes some of the pitfalls of this year's experience have been fixed!

#CTAB