Today in unplanned accessibility Testing
Part 1, Meetup.com
RantWoman fell in with Meetup.com and its Android app as a result of
clicking on a link in an email. Meetup is about creating groups and scheduling
events for the groups. RantWoman would say the platform does that well,
including email followup s and reminders—except that accessibility is
imperfect.
RantWoman fell in with Meetup as a result of signing up for email, possibly
from Open Seattle. RantWoman really
likes the mix of technology-very-specific groups, cultural; affinity (hundreds
of Russian Speakers in several groups for instance, and age or locality
specific groups. RantWoman already has too much on her schedule to explore much
but RantWoman thinks others would find it worthwhile to explore. Exploring and
signing up for groups is free; managing groups comes with a modest monthly fee
depending on the size of the group.
RantWoman did not really think about full-blown accessibility testing.
For one thing, RantWoman has enough vision that, when she loses patience about
some screen reader issue, she just works visually at 4x magnification with a
mouse etc. That works well enough for RantWoman…until…until RantWoman decided
to experiment using Meetup for a group devoted to technology issues for Blind
and Low Vision users.
Now two things happen:
- First, a totally blind member of the meetup group really who likes other Meetups complains about many of the same accessibility issues RantWoman has detected. Group Member has been imploring RantWoman to please tell the developers so they do not think Group member is the only one on the planet complaining. So folks, consider yourselves notified and if RantWoman is lucky exact details MAY Be forthcoming.
- Second, RantWoman did fine about scheduling many meetups on the calendar. But rantWoman wants about once a month to edit info about the upcoming meetup and then to send email notification to the whole membership. RantWoman has not been able to do either task using JAWS alone. RantWoman thinks the former was easier to do in the old, not updated version of Meetup; the latter task lives in Group administrator functions. RantWoman does the task infrequently and always has to poke around to find the right functionality. Yet RantWoman persists. And probably if RantWoman is going to continue to pay for Meetup services and worse yet to recommend Meetup to other blind users, RantWoman SHOULD put on her politest email possible and request “PLEASE fix the accessibility issues!”
Part 2. SignUp Genius
RantWoman has previously blogged of misadventures with
SignUp Genius and her faith community. RantWoman and her faith community are
reminding each other over numerous accessibility issues why we really need a
faith community. Nothing like mutual distress to warm the channels of community
life.
The short version, the following
comments in sequence during the intro expansion from one small group:
“Oh, I hope it’s accessible.”
“How about if you find something better,
let us know.”
“Okay, RantWoman, why don’t you take the
lead…?”
Um, NO! Facepalm! Facepalm AGAIN! Y’all are missing the point. TEAMWORK. Shared
discussion of requirements. A path to greater attention to accessibility issues
is enough. Plus the user pool is less techie than the pool of people using
Meetup and RantWoman is also trying to be patient with the reality that the
people perpetrating Signup Genius Have Probably Never Implemented an IT
Project.
Reprise of many sordid details.
At this point, RantWoman still owes the
developers some detail gripes BUT Signup genius wants people to have an
invitation or to type in the originator’s email every time one wants to
find a signup. RantWoman is peeved that,
despite more than one request, no one
has sent her the invitation link. RantWoman is peeved because for one thing the
Android version of the app does not deal with autorotate and typing an email
address over and over in a tiny keyboard just increases rantWoman’s level of
peeve!
RantWoman is also peeved because
RantWoman would be happy to sign up for tasks. However The List View of the
signups has dates all the way back to July and no option for only showing dates
going forward. RantWoman actually things that view is sometimes useful but most
of the time she just wants dates going forward.
There is also a calendar view. It does
fine about starting with a current date and going forward EXCEPT that the
screen reader reads every single date, not just the dates when there is
something to sign up for.
And furthermore, one popular option for
dealing with general difficultiessigning up: go find the person advocating
Signup genius and ask her to do the signup. Facepalm! If the POINT of signup
genius is not to have to find a live human or to sign up at hours the live human
is not likely to be engaged or ….
Stay tuned for the next exciting
episodes…
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