America Online: Is It Accessible Now?

America Online: Is It Accessible Now?

The

Braille Monitor

May 2003

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America Online: Is It Accessible Now?

by Curtis Chong

Curtis

Chong

From the Editor: For some years Curtis Chong directed the

NFB's technology department. Since last fall he has been the director of field

operations and access technology at the Iowa Department for the Blind. He still

serves as president of the NFB in Computer Science, a division of the National

Federation of the Blind. He continues to represent the NFB in our relationship

with America Online. Here is his report on recent developments with AOL:

Many people will remember the lawsuit filed by the National

Federation of the Blind against America Online (AOL) on November 4, 1999. On

that day and in the months and years to follow, the National Federation of the

Blind achieved prominence as an advocate for the blind promoting equal access

to electronic and information technology. In information technology circles

the lawsuit against AOL achieved tremendous visibility for the Federation, and

overnight the Federation became an organization with which the media consulted

whenever issues relating to access to technology by the blind were to be reported.

It has been well over three years since we filed our suit

against America Online, and it is reasonable to ask where matters stand today.

Has AOL as a company really gotten the message that, to the blind, access to

its software is an important issue? Does AOL engage in meaningful discussions

with the blind community--in particular with representatives of the blind? Is

accessibility a significant consideration during AOL's product development cycle?

Finally, is AOL 8.0 (the version that is being touted today) accessible to blind

people running screen-access software?

First I should say that we are no longer suing AOL. Once we

were persuaded that AOL had gotten the message (this was during the spring of

2000), we agreed to withdraw the suit to give the company enough time to get

its accessibility act together. While we reserved the right to file suit against

the company after a year if the National Federation of the Blind determined

that AOL was dragging its feet, we felt that we had more to gain through cooperation

and meaningful discussion than litigation.

Since 1999 AOL has adopted a corporate policy on accessibility,

formed an Accessibility Advisory Committee (which meets regularly and on which

the National Federation of the Blind is represented), hired a blind person to

direct its accessibility efforts, formalized its relationship with leading vendors

of screen-access software for the blind, and released three versions of the

AOL client software that have demonstrated steady improvement in compatibility

with screen-access technology. The company has also recognized that its audio-based

service, AOLByPhone, might have some special appeal to the blind and has begun

offering this service at a discount to its blind members.

AOL's Accessibility Policy

America Online has published a policy on accessibility, which

is posted on its Web site at <www.corp.aol.com/access_policy.html>.

The National Federation of the Blind insisted on creation of this policy before

we would even begin discussing withdrawing our suit. While the more cynical

among us might characterize the policy as so much window dressing, the fact

is that it does exist and in a formal way places AOL on record as a company

that has committed itself to make the products it sells accessible to everyone.

The first paragraph of the policy summarizes the company's position as follows:

America Online is continuing to lead efforts around the globe

to make the Internet a medium that improves people's lives. At AOL we value

our members and strive to provide them with the highest quality, easiest, and

most convenient services and products. We also believe that the Internet and

AOL should be friendly and easy to use for all consumers, including those with

disabilities. In that spirit we have developed the America Online Accessibility

Policy, which expresses our commitment to the development of products and services

that are accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.

Any blind person who has used the AOL client software would

hardly characterize it as "easy to use." Generally a blind person

using the AOL client has to find work-arounds in order to get at basic information

and services, but at least the work-arounds do exist, and the company is putting

itself on record, through its accessibility policy, as wanting to make its software

easy to use for everyone, "including those with disabilities." No

one would disagree that more work is needed to make the AOL experience as easy

to use for the blind as it appears to be for the sighted. The accessibility

policy formalizes the company's commitment to this effort and is therefore a

good beginning.

AOL's Accessibility Advisory Committee

AOL created its Accessibility Advisory Committee in the spring

of 2001. The committee's membership is designed to reflect a cross-disability

perspective. Some of the organizations represented on the committee include

the National Federation of the Blind, the National Association of the Deaf,

the American Association of People with Disabilities, and the American Association

of Retired Persons.

The deliberations of the committee tend to center on three

groups: the blind, the deaf, and people with cognitive disabilities. Not surprisingly,

issues pertaining to nonvisual access seem to occupy a good portion of the committee's

attention.

According to AOL, the mission of its Accessibility Advisory

Committee is to advise the company on the accessibility (to people with disabilities)

of its products to ensure that they are convenient and easy to use for everyone.

The meetings I have attended have been fairly candid, and the committee has

provided AOL with some valuable advice as well as spurring the company on to

even greater efforts to achieve full access to its software. All committee members

have signed nondisclosure agreements, and this makes it possible for AOL to

share information about future plans that it has not yet decided to make public.

I sit on the committee as a representative of the National

Federation of the Blind. I leave each meeting with mixed feelings. While I am

encouraged by the steady progress that AOL has made to make its Windows client

more accessible to the blind, I am often frustrated that nonvisual access is

not more pervasive within the company. For example, AOL TV (a way to provide

access to AOL through a set top box connected to your television set) is of

no interest to me because as a blind person I can't use it. The AOL Mobile Communicator,

which allows people to exchange "instant messages" wirelessly, is

likewise not accessible to me; yet it is tremendously popular among deaf people.

What AOL seems to have decided with respect to the blind is to focus on two

principal product lines: its client software for Windows and AOLByPhone.

Overall the AOL Accessibility Advisory Committee seems to

have resulted in a net gain for the blind. We learn about and have a chance

to comment on AOL's future plans, and AOL gets to hear some pretty frank commentary

from the blind community.

AOL's Director of Accessibility

AOL's Director of Accessibility is Tom Wlodkowski, who is

blind. Wlodkowski joined AOL in the summer of 2002. Prior to that he worked

at the National Center for Accessible Media of WGBH (of descriptive video fame).

I believe Tom Wlodkowski to be both bright and competent. He is also knowledgeable

about nonvisual access technology. In our many long and fruitful discussions,

he has frequently talked about the importance of AOL and screen-access vendors

meeting each other halfway--something which both of us agree must happen if

full nonvisual access is to be achieved. We have not always agreed about everything,

but we do talk with each other--often quite frankly.

Wlodkowski has some pretty good support within the AOL corporate

hierarchy; the accessibility team is placed organizationally within the company's

Integrity Assurance area, which is central to everything that goes on at AOL.

Accessibility can be tied to integrity, and enforcement is easier to achieve

as the need for accessibility competes for attention with other corporate priorities.

Formal Relationships with Screen Access Vendors

In order for nonvisual access to the AOL client to be achieved,

there has to be some cooperation between the AOL client and screen-access technology.

This requires AOL to exchange technical information with screen-access vendors

such as Freedom Scientific and GW Micro. When AOL first began considering how

to make its software more compatible with JAWS for Windows, it attacked the

problem by modifying JAWS (through its scripting language) and then making those

scripts available to AOL customers. Anyone who wanted to use AOL with JAWS was

instructed to copy a set of scripts from an AOL folder on the hard drive to

a JAWS folder. However, every time a new version of JAWS or AOL was released,

the scripts stopped working. Something needed to be done.

AOL decided to enter into a formal relationship with key screen-access

vendors. Agreements were made, information was exchanged, and release schedules

better coordinated. Matters have progressed to the point where today the current

version of JAWS has scripts for the AOL client built in. Moreover, if you go

to the Freedom Scientific Web site, you will find a number of AOL tutorials

in the Training Area. These include "How Easy It Is to Use AOL E-mail,"

"Using AOL Instant Messaging and the Buddy List," "Using AOL

Online Services and Browsing the Web," and "How to Get an Access Phone

Number and Dial into your AOL from Anywhere."

So What About AOLByPhone?

AOLByPhone is a way to take advantage of AOL services without

a computer. With AOLByPhone AOL members can read e-mail; respond to e-mail with

a voice message; check weather, movies, sports, or news; and use other services.

It is not a replacement for the AOL client but a supplement to it. AOL members

pay an additional fee to use the service.

With voice commands you tell AOLByPhone what you want to do,

and e-mail is available through a high-quality synthetic speech engine. Headline

news, weather, and other information are delivered using human voices. You cannot

send a text e-mail message with this system.

For a limited time AOL is offering the blind a special package

that provides a discount to the AOL service plus access to AOLByPhone. People

who are interested in this service should call (866) 854-1025.

Finally, is the AOL client more accessible? When we filed

our suit against AOL, the current version of the AOL client was 5.0. That version

was pretty much inaccessible to the blind. Since that time AOL has released

AOL 6.0, AOL 7.0, and AOL 8.0. Each version has worked slightly better than

its predecessor in compatibility with access technology for the blind. E-mail

has become easier and easier to use, and more buttons had labels which were

spoken properly. One happy AOL 8.0 user proclaimed, "I just spent nearly

ninety minutes doing something that I didn't think, five years ago, I would

ever be doing...navigating around the AOL interface, checking e-mail, listening

to AOL radio, and even downloading music!"

Over the past few years access to the AOL client has steadily

improved. AOL 8.0 represents the pinnacle of that improvement. With the AOL

client e-mail and Instant Messaging are both possible, and while one can always

find something that doesn't work in the AOL client, the important services do

work, and people within AOL are devoted to improving the situation even more.

Is this access good enough to cause thousands of blind people

to abandon their current Internet service providers? No one can really say.

However, over the past few years nonvisual access to the AOL client has definitely

improved, and, perhaps even more important, AOL as a company has decided to

make accessibility an important and highly visible corporate priority. The blind

have already begun reaping the benefits.

Response from America Online

To further the spirit of cooperation between America Online

and the National Federation of the Blind, I offered to provide Tom Wlodkowski,

AOL's director of accessibility, an opportunity to review this article. After

reading the article, Wlodkowski prepared this response:

I want to thank Curtis Chong and the Braille Monitor

for providing this comprehensive status report on AOL's efforts to improve usability

of the AOL software by the blind. Accessibility is a significant company priority

at America Online, and we are excited about the progress we have made in recent

years. The National Federation of the Blind has played an integral role in our

accessibility achievements to date, and we look forward to further collaboration.

One of the foundations of the AOL experience is our commitment

to making the Internet friendly, easy to use, and convenient for everyone. One

of the ways we've aimed to deliver this ease of use and convenience to our blind

members is by ensuring that the same screen reader features and commands that

make browsing the Web most efficient with Internet Explorer also work when you

browse the Web with the AOL software. Screen reader users can now choose either

to browse the Web by launching Internet Explorer from their desktop or to stay

completely within the confines of AOL's all-in-one application.

Another exciting accessibility development is that AOL's industry-leading

Parental Controls are now compatible with JAWS and Window-Eyes, making it easy

for parents to take responsibility for their kids' online safety with a few

simple keyboard commands. AOL's Parental Controls allow parents to control what

types of Web sites their children visit, whom they can communicate with, and

even how much total time they are allowed to spend online.

While significant progress has been made since 1999, we recognize

that accessibility work is a continual journey, not a destination. And while

our collaboration with leaders in the blind community is invaluable and the

emphasis our employees place on developing accessibility solutions is essential,

we can't overstate the importance of consumer feedback. We need to hear more

from consumers in the blind community who have put AOL to the test. As Curtis

alluded to earlier, one of the ways we are encouraging this participation is

by extending a special welcome offer to new members who are blind or visually

impaired. This package bundles the AOL service, including our flagship features

such as AOL e-mail and instant messages together with AOLByPhone for $19.95

a month, which is close to a $10 savings every month. The first two months are

on us. With AOLByPhone, reading and replying to your e-mail is as simple as

picking up the nearest telephone. AOLByPhone also provides free access to 411

directory assistance and access to timely information including CNN Headline

News, sports and weather. To sign up or to learn more, please call (866) 854-1025.

If you have additional questions or comments about accessibility

efforts at America Online, please send an e-mail to <[email protected]>.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Tom Wlodkowski

Director of Accessibility

America Online

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