Hey all, Having nowhere to write this as it is much more than 140 characters, I wanted to share my experience and opinion with the group. Relating to the big picture, I do get that this is fantasy football, but it really has opened my eyes to where accessibility falls with big companies.
Going completely blind over the past several years, one of the things I miss most is being able to play team sports such as baseball and football. One of the ways I have adjusted to not being able to play or see the games anymore is by playing fantasy baseball and fantasy football. As my vision has deteriorated and I have come to completely rely on voiceover technology playing fantasy games has gotten harder and harder. The most important part and most fun is the live draft. It's where you build your team for the year. Do to sites like Yahoo and ESPN using java and flash to run these drafts, I have had to auto pick which doesn't allow you to participate with everyone else, and leaves you with an inferior team starting out. Two years ago, I was so excited when after scouring the web and app store I came across an app released by an individual entrepreneur called Big Noggins that was the first app that made it possible for you to draft your ESPN and Yahoo teams on your iPhone. I was so thankful and surprised when the app actually worked with Voiceover. Of course I figured once the live draft started there would probably be some complications with Voiceover. Nope, the app worked perfectly with Voiceover. Amazing, as technology had made my day a little brighter by allowing me to once again participate in a live draft. I know in the big picture this is just fantasy games, but anything that brings you a little enjoyment is a good thing, and I was so thrilled for the past two years to be able to draft my own teams. With the 2013 fantasy football season coming up I have been preparing to draft my teams and kept checking the app store for Big Noggins release of the 2013 draft app. With the season getting closer and closer, and no release of the app, I began to investigate what was going on. I went to Big Noggins website and discovered that his technology that allows people to draft their team on an iPhone had been acquired by Yahoo. Ok, well, yahoo is supposedly a forward thinking company when it comes to accessibility. I downloaded Yahoo's 2013 fantasy football app which has been completely retooled for 2013, and now thanks to Big Noggins technology allows Yahoo users for the first time to draft their team on an iPhone. Last night I decided to check out one of the mock drafts to prepare for my live draft and see how the accessibility works. No surprise, as even though Yahoo acquired a company whose app was fully accessible, Yahoo in implementing the technology into their own app completely broke its accessibility with Voiceover. Once again leaving blind fantasy sport players in the dark. How could a company as big as Yahoo that claims to care about accessibility break something that once worked? It just goes to show where accessibility falls with a big company. They don't care. For years, I have been speaking with Yahoo about the accessibility of their fantasy games, and have been getting the typical we're aware of the accessibility issues and are working on it. After this latest experience, I now believe and know that companies like Yahoo could care less when it comes to improving accessibility. If this small entrepreneur was able to make his app accessible how in the world can a billion dollar company like Yahoo take that same technology, implement it in their app, and completely leave out accessibility. My only conclusion is it is they just don't care. ESPN is even worse than Yahoo, as I have tried contacting them about accessibility for five years, and have not once received a response. I find it pathetic that a company like ESPN, which is owned by Disney could care less about implementing any form of accessibility to help allow blind people to use any of their apps. Their website is an absolute nightmare to try and read with a screen reader. If Major League Baseball and other small entrepreneurs can make their apps fully accessible with Voiceover than their is no excuse for a company like ESPN to not be able to make their apps and website accessible. I know that I am talking about fantasy games, and in the big picture, they are not important, but this experience with major companies does shed some light on where accessibility falls. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
