Talk to frank – sight impaired access problems.

This blog links to several sound files in MP3 format. With luck they will play simply by clicking the link, if they don’t, right click the link and save them before playing.

As has been noted in the previous two blog entries there are some serious site access problems with the Talk to Frank website for anyone with a less than top notch computer. So I thought it might be fun to see how good the site is for sight impaired readers.

Before we do it’s worth reminding ourselves that Talk to Frank is a website provided by the government, paid for out of public funds and written by a highly paid professional company. It’s not put together like UKCIA is; by a bunch of law reform nerds who turn their hands to writing websites in their spare time. The government, of course, makes great play of the need to provide its information in an accessible form so it’s reasonable to assume that a major campaign like Talk to Frank would comply with high standards of accessibility.

I have a blind friend I provide IT help to from time to time. He, like many blind and otherwise sight impaired people, relies on a bit of software called “JAWS“.  JAWS reads the text on the page with a slightly robotic voice thus allowing people like my friend access to all sorts of IT software, including the internet.

Now of course, being a talking software, the only way to demonstrate what happens is to visit the website and to record the JAWS description. In order to understand what’s happening you need to know a couple of things about the way JAWS reads and also how computers are controlled by people who can’t use a mouse, as sight impaired people can’t.

First, JAWS is American and so he says things like “zee” instead of “zed” and a full stop is “period”. He will always pronounce a word even if it’s an acronym, hence “UKCIA” becomes “uc-shaw”.

To move around a site from link to link you press tab – which JAWS announces. Links with a clickable picture are announced as “link graphic” and normal links are announced as “link”. To activate a link you press enter, which JAWS announces as “enter”. It takes a little practice to understand the voice, but you soon get used to it.

By way of comparison, first we’ll have a look at UKCIA and find our way to the first page of the “Risks” section. We start off with a blank browser, enter the web address and listen to what JAWS tells us. JAWS first reads the page heading (in the blue bar at the top of the browser) which needs looking at as it’s a bit long, but we’ll let that go. Once onto the site we find our way to the culture section, then to the risks page.

Finding our way to the Risks section on UKCIA with JAWS (MP3 format)

Notice how easy it is to get to the risks section introduction page and how JAWS has no problem reading the information there.

So what happens when we use the same computer, same browser and same JAWS  to look at Talk to Frank?

 Welcome to Talk to Frank with JAWS (mp3 format). That is the entire front page of Talk to Frank as seen by JAWS.

In all honesty, does that make much sense? The section which reads “CLTzerozerodollarheaderdollarsearchbuttonbutton” is in fact the search pane (I only know that because I could see it).

It helps to know that we’re looking for the “A-Z of drugs” page, which JAWS reads as “Ahdashzee of drugs”.

So lets try again, this time selecting the “Ahdashzee of drugs” option:

Talk to Frank – finding the A-Z of drugs index page (MP3 format)

Notice how we have to sit through all the menu options again, only this time (because I can see what needs to be done) we tab through the ahdashzee of drugs link. A blind person of course would press enter when he heard that and be back at the start of the page.

The constant “tab” is what happens as you step through the alphabet links on the A-Z of drugs page, in other words, nothing happens, no voice tells you “A”, “B” and so on. Pressing “enter” on any of these silent letters is equally pointless, nothing happens.

So anyone wanting to use Talk to Frank who suffers sight impairment and is used to using JAWS stands no chance, the site simply doesn’t work, it really is that badly designed.

So what about some of these other links we can see with JAWS, surely they will work fine? Well, here’s what happens if, after tabbing our way through the useless  “Ahdashzee of drugs” contents page, we take a look at the Talk To Frank “Access information” page:

Talk to Frank accessibility information page under JAWS (MP3 format)

Nothing, just utter garbage.

Now this raises some serious questions. Talk to Frank is run and paid for by the British Government via its drugs unit in the Home Office.  The Talk to Frank site was redesigned back in late 2006, so has been in this state of restricted accessibility since then and seemingly no-one in the Home Office or anyone else concerned with value for money has noticed.

This shows a lack of due diligence to put it mildly.

Is it worth complaining? Probably not.