Comments on: Screen-Reader Problems Uncovered In Olympics Ticket Site

By: Robin Christopherson

Robin Christopherson — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:43:14 +0000

Catherine – thanks for your comment and apologies for any misunderstanding. My point was that the logic textcaptcha questions were simple enough to be accessible by anyone surfing the web solo. They are in plain English and hence on a par with much of the text one would encounter on web pages (for example; “What is the colour: Pig, Red, House and Wisdom”?) They are certainly much easier to handle than distorted visual or audio codes. If a user finds them too difficult to understand then I submit that they would similarly have difficulties with reading and understanding other pages too – and would thus more than likely be supported in their surfing.

By: Dan Jellinek

Dan Jellinek — Sun, 29 May 2011 09:13:11 +0000

Hello Catherine, as the reporter for this piece, I should make it clear that Robin pointed out that there are actually several million different questions and that users can request a new question as many times as they like, so there is likely to always eventually be one that anyone capable of using the web independently can answer. Also, I would suggest (from experience!) that decoding those distorted lettters or sounds is by no means easier than asking one of the text captcha questions, so at the vey least one is not making things harder for anyone.

But I note your point that it is always dangerous to generalise for a whole group of people and that individuals may exist who for one reason or another (or for complex groups of reasons) may find a certain type of task harder and another type easier.

It’s a shame that any of these captcha type trials are needed – but personally I do think the text ones are a good potential tool.

By: Catherine Roy

Catherine Roy — Sun, 29 May 2011 00:49:42 +0000

Hi,

Thanks for posting this story. It is important that people be made aware of these problems.

I would also note that I do not agree with Robin Christopherson’s following comment :

“(…) and people with learning difficulties such that they could not answer any of these questions would not have the ability to use the web without help in any case.”

While this might be the case for some people, I feel this statement is a dangerous over-generalization and can perpetuate a false perception about the abilities of people with cognitive disabilities.