COAT advocates for accessibility and usability of technology for people with disabilities. Enacting the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (21st CVAA) was a huge step forward and we are working to implement this new law. COAT’s overall aim is to ensure accessibility, usability, and affordability of all broadband, wireless, and Internet technologies for people with disabilities.
COAT Members Form Accessible CAPTCHA Interest Group For People Who Are Deaf-Blind
On August 16, 2010, a number of leaders from various COAT organizations formed a national advocacy interest group to focus on accessibility of CAPTCHA technology used to ensure a person and not a computer is using the website. Advocates assert that for too long, Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Linkedin, and many other websites have made their websites inaccessible to deaf-blind people especially when they use the CAPTCHA technology. Many consumers with disabilities have brought up this issue and have experienced difficulties accessing websites due to lack of accessibility of this feature.
In particular, people who cannot see or hear characters displayed in the format of an image have to rely on sighted or hearing assistance in order to be able to enter the required information in given form fields. The CAPTCHA technology is a backward development for many deaf-blind people and there is a need to ensure no one is excluded from equal access to information or services on the Internet due to this barrier. While there is a software program that will translate CAPTCHA characters into text, it is time consuming and people may 'time out' when using it losing access to the page or website.
COAT organizations with representatives involved in looking at this electronic barrier include American Council of the Blind (IN), Bay State Council of the Blind (MA), Collaborative for Communication Access Via Captioning (ME), Helen Keller National Center (NY), Kansas Association of the Blind & Visually Impaired, Telecommunications for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing Inc. (TDI) (MD), in addition to DREDF in California and an interested individual in Florida.
The group will plan to focus on this issue and to propose a regulatory procedure or other approaches to require website hosts to implement better accessible technology. For further information, please send Email to Bapin Bhattacharyya with "CAPTCHA group" in the subject line or contact COAT via Email.
Closed Caption button on remote.
The American Association of
The American Association of the Deaf-Blind would like to be included in this advocacy effort.
The Collaborative for
The Collaborative for Communication Access via Captioning (CCAC) is a national USA project to advocate for quality CART and captioning wherever needed - e.g. to mainstream real-time text for millions who need it, use it, and appreciate it. Most people who are "Deaf, deaf, or deafened" and people with "hearing loss" do not use sign language. Captions are needed, as well as for many others, e.g. to learn languages, those who have different cognitive/learning styles. It also provides a ready transcript. CART (real time translation to accurate full verbatim text) is needed across all categories of life, from education to employment, from healthcare to public safety, and much. Join us in this grass-roots all volunteer effort now online from the CCAC website.
CCAC is across all States and welcomes international members.
Regarding CAPTCHA, this is a different yet related issue to the CCAC mission for inclusion of CART and captioning across all categories of everyday life. Yet all telecommunications are important (e.g. CCAC advocates for captioning on all Internet media, largely lacking so far). In terms of CAPTCHA and security issues online, CCAC supports all efforts to make Internet accessible for all.