independent living Archives - Suman’s Accessibility blog

Overview

I am person with visually impaired (totally blind) and I would like to share my experience on the accessibility of apps and websites that I use as part of my day-to-day activities. As part of this, I would like to discuss top 10 things that are really affecting and bothering me very much because of inaccessibility of those apps and websites. The top 10 things that I am going to discuss today are not only the issues for me but also these are the issues for whole community. Before writing this article, I spoke to many visually impaired friends and most of them are having the same views as I have.

As you know, most of the things(such as buying the product, ordering the food, booking flight tickets, booking cab, net banking, booking doctor appointment, paying utility bills, reading news, getting updated with the knowledge, watching movies, listening to music, applying for the insurance claims, updating insurance cards, tracking the status of parcel, booking the bus/train, mobile recharges, booking gas, paying life insurance/health insurance/term insurance premiums, catching-up with friends and family in the online meeting platforms, sharing the feelings in the social networking sites like Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, whats app, online education, applying for the job, applying for housing loan, checking our PF amount, filing the income tax, booking hotels/resorts, apply for the passport, and much more..) can be done in the online itself. Making the things in the online is very convenient and easy for the users as the works get done without stepping out from our house. In addition, pandemic made people to use the online mode with force as people believe that online mode is very safe. Since most of the things are happening in the online, imagine what if these websites/applications are not accessible for the people with disabilities like me? if these websites/applications are not accessible for the people with disabilities like me then it is going to create huge barrier for us. As a result, people with disabilities would not be independent enough in accessing the same. Therefore, it is very critical to make the applications/website accessible for the people with disabilities. let us look at top 10 things that are really affecting and bothering me while accessing this information digitally.

Top 10 inaccessible things that make my life frustrating

I need to pay utility bills (such as electricity bills, mobile recharges, d2h, and so on.) on the monthly basis and many people use Paytm app to do the same. Unfortunately, Paytm is not great in terms of its accessibility. The biggest challenge with the Paytm app is that the page keeps getting refreshed/updated while accessing the elements with the screen reader and as a result, the focus gets lost. This makes the experience horrible for the assistive technology users in accessing and paying the utility bills. Although there is an alternative accessible app called google pay, my question is why don’t paytm team make their app and website accessible for me and my community? Even though community raise many concerns about its accessibility, they did not really care. I stopped using paytm app all together. Another aspect is that am forced to use google pay here despite of good offers/deals in the paytm. It is not fare that I cannot take the advantage of those deals and offers that paytm is providing. It is really discrimination
I need to do certain financial transactions on the regular basis with the help of net banking. However, some of the bank websites are having image captcha to login to the sites. This image captchas makes us dependent to do the financial transactions and it’s very frustrating. To overcome this challenge, banking websites should provide alternatives (such as OTP logins, audio captchas, and so on.) to image captchas to provide equal experience for all the users
I was recently trying to book the slot for the covid-19 vaccination in the cowin website but, I was unable to book slot for the vaccination due to its inaccessibility. Imagine if health related things are not accessible for people with disabilities, then we feel very insecure in the society. Government should take right measures to make such health-related thing accessible for all the users and it’s a fundamental right for the citizens. Anyways, I took vaccination from my company and my company arranged vaccination for me and my family and the process went very smooth, thanks to my employer!
When my family is not around, and I want to order the food in the online then I need to look for the food apps. one of the popular food apps is Zomato. Unfortunately, Zomato is not great in terms of its accessibility. The main challenge with Zomato is that screen reader users would not be able to understand that there are offers because all those offers are in the images format. Similarly, there are lot of unlabelled buttons (increment/decrement quantity) in the app and as a result, screen reader users would not be able to understand the purpose of those buttons. Although I can order the food in the Zomato, it is kind of bumpy!
I sometimes need to buy household things or electronic items for my family and myself. To buy those things, I open online shopping app called flip cart app and try to access the app with my screen reader. Unfortunately, category names (such as men, women, electronic, kids, kitchen and so on.) are not read for me as those categories are represented in the image format. This kind of experience makes me very annoying and makes us dependent to buy the things. Although there is an alternative accessible website which is amazon, my question is why don’t flipcart team make their app and website accessible? I am forced to use amazon here despite of good offers/deals in the flipcart. It is not fare that I cannot take the advantage of those deals and offers that flipcart is providing. It is really discrimination
When I want to go to hotel/resort for chill out then I open app called goibibo to book the hotels. However, I cannot even find search feature to look for the hotels in this app with my screen reader and it is highly inaccessible. I really get frustrated with these inaccessible applications because I cannot book hotel rooms by myself
When I want to travel around the country then I must book the tickets in the online applications. However, most of those online apps (such as goibibo, make my trip) are not accessible because I cannot even select from and to city and calendar controls with my screen readers.
When I want to send some food or some gift from my home to my friend’s home then I need to use app called donzo. To send the things from my home to my friend’s home, we need to search for my friend’s address in the donzo app. However, this core search functionality itself is not accessible with my screen reader and as a result, I am dependent to perform this task. When there is dependency then my frustration becomes doubled
When I want to have entertainment then I want to open Aha app. Aha is one of the entertainment apps and many new movies get released in this app. However, I cannot access Aha app at all with my screen reader and it is highly inaccessible. The basic things such as playing videos and browsing the movie names itself are not accessible with my screen reader and it is really a big problem. Although there is an alternative accessible app called prime video, my question is that why don’t Aha team make their app accessible? Things are different from Aha app to amazon prime video and vice-versa. The simple example could be the movie that I want to watch in the Aha app is not available in the amazon prime video. Even though I am forced to use amazon prime video here, I cannot watch my favourite movie, is not it frustrating?
When I want to understand what is going on in the society then I want to read the E-news. While reading the news in the online with my screen reader, lots of adds(advertisements) interrupt my reading. As a result, I give-up reading the news completely.

Conclusion

To conclude this, making the websites/applications accessible is very important thing for the people with disabilities like me. failing to do so makes the people with disabilities at disadvantage.

Most of the organizations would think a lot to hire person with disability in spite of the skill that he/she possess. The reason could be that employer may not aware of the fact that how well they are independent enough in doing their day to day activities. The few examples could be that how does person with visually challenged work on the computer? How does person with visually challenged come from home to office and vice-versa, and so on.. There would be many questions as such in employer mind and there is nothing wrong about this. It is the responsibility of person with disability to prove their confidence level in front of employer. Having said that, some employers hire person with disability but they may not aware of how can we make them productive. The example could be that if the screen reader software is not provided for the person with visually challenged then he/she would not productive at their work place. In other words, he/she is not independent enough in accessing the computer. In my view, the independence is just not only depends upon the employee with disability responsibility but also it depends upon the employer responsibility as well. What I meant is that if the reasonable accommodation for employee with disability is not provided by employer to perform day to day tasks at their work place then they would be not independent/productive. Let us take same example. If the screen reader software is provided for the visually challenged to access the computer then they would be independent in performing their job. This is just a simple example and employer should consider case by case and provide the reasonable accommodation. On the same lines, I would like to share how independent I am at my work place and how well my employer takes care of me to become independent.

You may or may not aware of that I am person with visually challenge and I work for Deque software. My employer provides all the necessary accommodation to make my job independent and they are:

Email conversations: all the emails are accessible. In other words, if there is any picture in the email then it would have text alternatives. As emails are very critical in performing our day to day job, if these emails are not accessible, I would have been excluded in the critical part of the job. Let me explain with the example how my employer takes care of this. We usually have monthly meetings at my work place. As part of this, one or other employee presents the various topics. Employee who presents would send their presentation to the meeting organizer at least one day before. The organizer looks at the presentation in advance and sends accessible version in the email format before the meeting begins if there are any complex slides with graphs/chats/and so on.. Are present. this enables me to understand the intended meaning of the slide during actual presentation. This is how, our employer takes care of us
Internal tools: There are many internal tools like intranet, time entry systems, WS Assure, and so on.. In our organization. All of them are accessible. Imagine if these internal tools are not accessible then I would not have become independent/productive. Let me talk about this with another scenario. One of my known persons is person with visually challenged and he is employed. The time system in his organization is not accessible. It would be very challenging for him to enter the time that he spent on various projects during the day in the time tracking system as it is not accessible. This makes him dependent and as a result, he cannot be satisfied at this job. You can understand now that how important the accessibility is for internal tools.
Internal documents: there are many internal documents like SOWs in our organization. As the scope of each and every project is mentioned in the SOWs and it is critical information about the project, imagine if these documents are not accessible, I would not be independent enough in performing my job. Fortunately, I am blessed as all of the internal documents at our organization are accessible and this makes me independent in performing my job.
Online meeting tools: as part of my job, I would need to attend the status and client calls. I would need to attend most of all these calls in the online as our project managers and clients are in the onsite. If these tools are not accessible then I would not be able to perform all necessary actions. Initially, I had tough time with few inaccessibility tools that our organization is using. Later, when we provided the feedback then organization procured the accessible online meeting tools. With the arrival of accessible online meeting tools at our organization, I am independent enough in accessing these tools.
Online meetings: there are monthly meetings at our organization. Most of the monthly meetings would be held in the online. Live captioning is provided in these online meetings in order to include employees with hearing impaired. it may not be useful for me but I wanted everybody to understand how well our employer cares about
Visual assistance: you might be wondering what is this visual assistance about. As part of my job, I need to perform accessibility audit on the various sites. While auditing the site for accessibility, I may not be able to understand complete page as sites contain inaccessible elements. To help with this, sighted person sits with me and explains the complete page and this we call as visual assistance. The explanation about the page helps us to visualize the page and this would also help us to raise the accurate accessibility issues. This way, I would be confident about the issues that I have reported to the client. Trust me, there are dedicated visual assistance resources at our organization to help us in this regards. Imagine if we do not have this visual assistance help then we cannot be confident about the issues that we have reported and our reports would become incomplete/inaccurate.
Accountability and equal opportunity: some organizations hire person with disability but they are very scared for some reason to give the accountability of the various tasks to employee with disabilities. Time god, it is not the case at least in our organization. At our organization, I am accountable for the project deliveries, quality, and what not.. Along with this accountability, our employer provides equal opportunity in the career growth. It is very cool for us!
External assets: our organization not only takes care of the accessibility of internal tools and documents but also takes care of the accessibility of external assets such as websites, invoices, proposals, and so on.. This itself tells that how well our organization deeply cares about all of us.
Infrastructure accessibility: I have been talking so far about how well digital accessibility helped me in order to complete our job. Let me talk something different now and it is about implementation of carpet on the floor. You might be wondering what this carpet is about. Our organization placed carpet on the floor for employee with visually challenged to navigate the big hall way easier. In my experience, what I understood that When person with visually challenged navigates the big hall way without much reference then it would be high chance that he/she loses his/her way. In order to make the navigation easier on hall way for employee with visually challenged, our organization has taken the step to place the carpet on the floor.
Transportation: last, but not least, our employer provides transportation facility to employee with disabilities. Without transportation facility, being person with visually challenged, commute would become very hassle. Office transportation makes my commute smoother and easier.

All the above factors make my job independent and help me to lead my professional and personal life with dignity and equality. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our Deque leadership(Preety Kumar, Anik Ganguly, Sujasree Kurapati) for making the work place inclusive to all. Trust me, it is awesome place to work!