Hi all,
About Netflix and accessing the next season of TV shows.
If you, by using the normal left and right arrows on the keyboard,
sit on the letter S of where it states the line Season plus its
number, press enter, then arrow down, you will get to the episodes of
that season. There are work arounds, but if the screen reader
doesn’t say the obvious, they can’t be found. I have windows 10,
jaws 17, and I tried this with IE11.
I can see the screen to a degree, and how the screen is laid out to
how jaws often reads it, does not always match.
Lisa-Maree
*From:*Joshua Hori [mailto:[email protected]]
*Sent:* Tuesday, December 1, 2015 6:03 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: Netflix not accessible to blind people using a laptop
and screen reading software.
Using Windows 7, JAWS 16 and Firefox. Full disclosure: I’m a sited
user with screenreader experience. (I prefer Firefox since I get the
best experience with a screenreader)
It seems that Netflix isn’t providing “focus" on content once
selected. For instance, I can navigate the site using a screenreader
by headers and/or links, (I bring up the links list and look for
“Audio Descriptions” and press enter, then I bring up the links list
again and navigate the list of movies that are now available) but
once I find a movie I would like to watch, I press enter, but can’t
access the new menu that drops down to play the content, it just
keeps navigating to the next movie. The work around is to immediately
bring up the headers, navigate to the header that’s listed and press
enter, which then allows me to access the content within the dropdown
(press tab once to access the play link).
TV shows are difficult to navigate as they all state “Play link”
(instead of “play episode 8”) and do not announce the episode without
using the arrow keys (press down a couple of times to hear more about
the episode). For TV seasons there is a dropdown button to change
seasons using the mouse, but I can’t locate the button with a
screenreader without using the virtual cursor, and I can’t access the
dropdown menu with a keyboard at all. You can access other episodes
using the “see previous titles Button” and “see more titles Button”
(bring up the form fields list to easily find these), but this is
only for the season displayed.
I hope this helps some.
Best,
Joshua
*From:*Daniel McBride [mailto:[email protected]]
*Sent:* Monday, November 30, 2015 9:37 AM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: Netflix not accessible to blind people using a laptop
and screen reading software.
Hello Tim:
Can you please clarify the accessibility issue we need address with
Netflix? On my Toshiba laptop, using Windows 8 and JAWS 14, I can get
onto Netflix, manage to utilize the Search field, find the movie,
documentary or television program I desire and get it to play. This
is without Audio Description. And I am not able to select a specific
season and episode of a television program, such as Star Trek Next
Generation. I am simply stuck with playing whichever season and
episode is next up in my account.
I am going to email Netflix as requested in your email here. I just
want to be clear about what our hurdles are as blind persons using
Netflix. I will also add that I am a Rhapsody Music subscriber and
the problems with Rhapsody are worse than Netflix, if anyone is
interested.
Thanks for your efforts.
Dan McBride
Fort Worth, Texas
*From:*Tim Ford [mailto:[email protected]]
*Sent:* Monday, November 30, 2015 11:05 AM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Netflix not accessible to blind people using a laptop and
screen reading software.
Hi All,
For those out there who want to use Netflix, here is an email I
received last evening that contains instructions on how to contact
the right people. As mentioned in the note, Netflix is still not
very interested in fixing things, and your continued emails to
Netflix are encouraged to keep some pressure on them.
Tim Ford
*From:*Accessible Netflix Project team
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:*Sunday, November 29, 2015 9:46 PM
*To:*Tim Ford <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:*Re: Netflix not accessible to blind people using a laptop
and screen reading software.
This is kate! I am so sorry that your email has not been replied to
yet but we get a ton, and I mean, a ton of email. Robert Kingett is
the CEO and we are still trying to make them see what you highlighted
as well as others. To be quite frank, they would rather not even
bother with us, but we keep emailing and calling and bugging them,
professionally, I may add. In our experience, we never hear a
sincere, sorry! Let's work on these layout designs for JAWS OR NVDA
users and I doubt we will unless we keep pushing them like we have
been doing. Would you like to email Robert Kingett, He can give you
more contacts than I can. I am just the email manager. :) Below is a
message we just got that may help.
Hi,
Hope you're well and thanks for your e-mail.
Going forward, can I suggest you contact Marlee Tart in the global PR team please
(her e-mail address is:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>).
From your recent queries it's clear that your questions are at global scale as
opposed to regional/local, and this e-mail address reaches the Australian and
New Zealand PR agency team (and we don't actually have visibility into a lot of
the areas you're interested in).
I've dropped Marlee a line to let her know you'll be in touch.
Best,
L.
On 6/24/2015 5:32 PM, Tim Ford wrote:
To Whom It May Concern,
Below I have pasted in an email I sent Monday to what is
supposedly the engineering group for Netflix; a Netflix telephone
representative gave me the address. Today someone told me about
your group, and I applaude you for your efforts that certainly
seem to be the motivating factor for Netflix to start providing
AD. Please let me know if you have any suggestions on any of the
issues covered in my post below.
Sincerely,
Tim Ford
*From:*Tim Ford <mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:*Monday, June 22, 2015 5:57 PM
*To:*[email protected]
*Cc:*[email protected]
*Subject:*Netflix not accessible to blind people using a laptop
and screen reading software.
Dear Netflix,
I am blind, and use a Windows 7 laptop. Up until a week or so
ago, your web site was extremely hard to navigate, but at least I
could start a video. Now, after your web page design changes
implemented a few days ago, I cannot even start a video.
I am using the latest update of JAWS version 16; JAWS is the
world’s most widely used screen reading software for the blind.
I tried accessing your service with IE, Firefox, and Chrome, but
could not get a video to start. With IE, I cannot even activate
my profile.
I am a fairly experienced Internet user, and if there is a way to
navigate your site with a screen reader, I have not figured it
out. I am using the recommended common settings for JAWS, and I
have no problems with some other video streaming services.
Back a few weeks ago, Netflix announced the addition of audio
description. That is a great move, and I applaud you for that.
However, in a very ironic twist, it is not possible for a blind
person to select the audio described version, even though one is
on the part of your site that contains only audio described
programs. Why add that extra step? If one is on the audio
description page, the user obviously wants the audio described
version, so why not make that the default?
In general, there seems to be a huge gap between your marketing
department and the technology group. Netflix marketing is
advertising this new and wonderful audio description service, but
a blind person simply cannot navigate the site, especially after
the rollout of your new web page design.
In closing, I am using a Windows laptop, and I do not have a
smart phone. The issues I am asking you to please fix are just
for us old-fashioned blind folks using a Windows computer.
I know from experience that screen reader accessibility is a very
narrow specialty and skill set, so if you do not have such an
expert on staff, you could either hire one or contract with one
of the accessibility consultant experts that will help you become
and stay accessible.
I am happy to volunteer by helping you test any changes; I have
done that in the past for a number of web service companies.
Please advise, and much thanks.
Sincerely,
Tim Ford
Phone: 916-538-6415
