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
