Love Can Be Blind

Posted by Kenneth Ronkowitz on


heart-shaped computer mouse

I just love (well, appreciate - gotta watch how I use the L word on this Valentine's Day) the social networking that can occur by blogging.

Saw a new comment pop up today from Adrianna Montague-Gray who is one of the bloggers for the American Foundation for the Blind on the AFB Blog. This group blog covers topics such as technology and education and is worth your attention.

Her latest comment:

"Kenneth, thought you would enjoy our latest discovery on the CAPTCHA front. Check out AFB's Valentine's evaluation of online dating sites. Thanks again for bringing attention to this important issue!"

What a clever idea for their Valentine's Day post. She and a colleague, Marc Grossman, checked out the accessibility of some online dating sites. They looked informally at home pages of Match.com, eHarmony, and Love is Blind. Using Marc's computer, they tried to sign up for the services using a JAWS screen reader.

You can check out their evaluations yourself, but some of the problems they encountered include poorly labeled buttons, CAPTCHAs (and a phone number for sight-impaired people that wasn't a working number!), Flash problems, and just plain old lazy design of headings and markup language.

4 CupidsI didn't know there was a site like Love is Blind, which is an online matchmaking site for blind and visually-impaired people. They get a 4 Cupid review. Well-labeled edit boxes, controls, and a clean design - but not perfect. It needed the latest version of Adobe Flash which is not supported by the W3C guidelines.

It has been a few years since I've really addressed accessibility issues (in my instructional design and distance learning years), so I'm glad to be reminded about these things.

Note to Tim and Adrianna: Want to run some accessibility tests on Serendipity35 and see how we fare? Tim: Why can't I automatically include alt & title tags for images? Is there any plug-in for our open-source software to improve our accessibility? We got 2 positive comments from AFB, so I don't want a bad review!

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