Twitter becomes more blind-friendly

From The Tech Chronicles:

A simple change in security software recently made Twitter more accessible to the blind and visually impaired.

Members of San Francisco's Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired appealed to Twitter executives during the company's first business conference in late May to make changes to its CAPTCHA security software and make it more accessible for the blind and visually impaired. CAPTCHA is the test near the end of most online registration forms where people are asked to read one or two wobbly words and type them. Its purpose is to avoid automatic computer-generated responses.

But it hinders independent navigation for blind and visually impaired users who rely on software that reads information on their computers aloud. Such programs often come to a stump when they try to decipher the CAPTCHA word garbles, leaving their users in a bind and unable to continue without someone else's help.

"In order to get past CAPTCHA, which my text-to-speech software can't pick up, I have to ask a sighted person to assist me, compromising the security of my personal information - the very thing that Twitter tries to avoid by using CAPTCHAs," said the Lighthouse's director of public policy and information Jessie Lorenz in a press release, who is blind.

The Lighthouse's arguments must have been convincing because a few days later Lorenz noticed Twitter changed its CAPTCHA test for reCAPTCHA. The latter is a system designed to help digitize the content of scanned books, newspapers and other written records by employing the help of individuals going through security tests, but it is also more compatible with screen reader software.

So independently from Twitter's intentions behind the change in security software, the company will probably earn some new fans among the blind and visually impaired.

"For individuals who are blind or visually impaired, social networking has become a critical tool for a population of people who are often isolated because of their disability to connect to friends, family and their communities," the press release said.