Re: Example of accessible CAPTCHAS that work well

Hi Rob,

On 2011-11-17, at 11:38 AM, Robert Yonaitis wrote:

> Personally, I have sat on the fence between technology, privacy,
> security and usability for a couple decades. I believe that when
> discussing accessibility (A11y) we need to be inclusive.  If we are
> saying that Captchas are not usable that is one thing. There are
> plenty of things that are not usable. If we are discussing if captchas
> can be made accessible than the answer has to be yes.

Of course, I stand by you when it comes to inclusion. I totally agree. However, I have yet to see one captcha example that actually is accessible to everyone and secure enough to be a viable option. In all modesty, the closest I've seen so far is our attempt at creating a device independent captcha slider last year - distcha [1] - with the canadian government and even that still fails a few requirements in terms of robustness...

[1] http://tbs-sct.ircan-rican.gc.ca/projects/gcwwwcaptcha/roadmap

Until I see one (or we come up with a solution that works perfectly), I just cannot admit to it.


> The W3C Accessibility Initiatives should not be in the business of
> promoting or excluding individual technologies because they do not
> approve of their usability or features, in fact if the W3C wants a
> broader acceptance for their efforts they should help all technologies
> be accessible a great example would be ARIA.

I disagree. I believe it IS the responsibility of the WAI to raise awareness about the limitations of "solutions" like captcha and they have done so in the past (refer to Matt May's note from 2005: http://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/). If not on the WAI level, then at least in EOWG.

The idea is not necessarily to say flat out that captchas are evil (though they are, we're amongst ourselves, let's call a cat a cat), but at the very least, not to promote it's use by suggesting a "viable solution" in the GOOD/BAD demo that in fact, wouldn't necessarily be viable or accessible.

As you very well know, it's not just a matter of invoking Aria, the mighty Viking goddess of opera (as depicted in WebAIM's presentations), for captchas to magically work out. Aria is great, but it requires technologies that support it and users who can access those technologies, two situations that are far from perfect today. 

I'm all for looking into or building solutions using aria that will work tomorrow (distcha again was an example of this), but in the meantime, we all need a solution that actually works today, with yesterday's technologies. 

And none does. So I stand my ground. ;p


> In the end captchas like
> them em or not can be made accessible and do serve a purpose isn't the
> rest simply opinion.

Please provide me with one working example that would make me change my mind. Just one. A lot of us really need it.


> I believe if the W3C started looking at things this way there would be
> a wider buy in amongst engineers. In the end the best document will be
> the inclusive document IMHO.

I believe the W3C already does it's job. Of course, more can always be done. But it's not entirely up to them to solve all the world's problems too. 

If there were just a few private interests looking into captcha that actually understood accessibility, we wouldn't have so many crappy alternatives to captchas out there that are ust as bad (if not worse) and that just keep pushing the boundaries of exclusion further and further back for people with disabilities.

Regards,

/Denis

Received on Thursday, 17 November 2011 18:04:40 UTC