A Call For Accessibility Commitment

I just sent the below as a follow-up to the previous correspondence with Amazon. I’ll be interested in their response.

 

For background, see correspondence with this address, below.

First, congratulations on your commendation from the National Federation Of the Blind for adding talking menus to the Kindle 3. While this is a great first step, I’d submit commendation was, perhaps, a bit premature.
This is a great first step, and there’s no denying that. However, more needs to be done, and much of it, I believe, should be able to be accomplished by firmware updates to the Kindle 3 hardware. At a minimum, all core functionality should be accessible using spoken feedback. This means the ability to browse and purchase from the Kindle ebook store, the ability to browse and select a book, and to begin reading that book. This all begins, of course, with the ability to turn on the voice guide without assistance. A reasonable stop gap measure (and I emphasize that this should not be a permanent solution) would be the ability to ask that voice guide be turned on before the unit is shipped.
Naturally, I completely understand that experimental functions such as the Web browser are less likely to receive attention, and I’m not as concerned about those. Core reading functionality being accessible is the important thing here. While it’s great to have a book read aloud, the ability to have unfamiliar words or terms spelled is essential, as is the ability to find, select, and review sections using spoken output. A straight read simply won’t be adequate for something like a college textbook.
As you are undoubtedly aware, the ability for publishers to disable text to speech is of great concern to the print disabled community. Ideally,we would like to see all books without the ability to have this important functionality disabled. If this cannot be done per individual unit, and if Amazon will not change its policy, so that all books allow text to speech to work, please at least ensure that all books with TTS disabled are designated on their purchase and information pages. I, for one, would be very upset if I bought a book and was then unable to read it. While “The publisher has asked that text to speech be disabled on this book, we apologize to our print disabled readers for their utter stupidity” would be super, I understand it is probably not practical. Still, a notice that “Text to speech is not available for this title”, noted prominently, would be sufficient, I think.
Let me stress here that I am at this time willing, able, and ready to purchase a Kindle 3, if I have some commitment from Amazon that I will be able to use its core functionality independently at some point, and that accessibility concerns are being addressed for this unit. I will add that I am willing, able, and ready to assist you in testing such accessibility improvements on the Kindle 3, should you need such a thing. As a blind computer user and technical support specialist for an assistive technology company, with over 25 years of computer use under my belt, I am happy to help you make the Kindle 3 even more useful to the print disabled community. If these concerns cannot or will not be addressed on this hardware platform and we must wait for the Kindle 4, sadly, I will not purchase a Kindle 3.
I eagerly await your response. Know that our previous correspondence, along with this letter, have been posted to my personal blog for the print disabled community to see. I’m sure we are all eager to hear that Amazon is committed to future accessibility enhancements as soon as is practical.

Amazon Responds

I just received the below Email. It sounds like Kindle might be slightly usable, but by no means does it appear to be anywhere close to being used for serious reading. It is also unclear whether one can browse the Kindle store, but it sounds like this won’t be possible.

 

Hello,

Thanks for writing to us with your comments.

Voice Guide lets you navigate your Kindle with spoken menus, selectable items, and descriptions. For example, when you open a book, Kindle speaks your current location and how far you’ve read.

Presently we don’t have the features like enabling the voice guide and TTS features without sighted assistance, navigate or read by smaller increments in text to speech, voice guide or text to speech work in the Web browser, enabling text to speech for the books which have text to speech option disabled.

I’ve sent your comments to the Kindle team for consideration. We’re regularly working on improvements to your Kindle experience. Customer feedback like yours helps us continue to improve the service we provide. 

I hope this helps. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Did I solve your problem?

If yes, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=yagwhvtx3324198336

If no, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=yagwhvtx3324198336

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. 

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

Madhu Y
Amazon.com
Your feedback is helping us build Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company.
http://www.amazon.com/your-account

A Note to Amazon On Kindle 3

I just submitted the below to Amazon. I encourage others to submit their own concerns, especially for accessibility, to them as well. According to the manual, you can Email kindle@feedback@amazon.com so Email them early and often.

 

I’m very interested in the Kindle 3, but as a blind user, I have a few concerns. Before I outline those concerns, I would like to say that I, for one, am happy to purchase if Amazon can make a commitment to our community to make accessibility improvements where warranted. 

As you might suppose, my concerns directly relate to the text to speech and voice guide features:

1) Will voice guide speak as you type? Will it read options as they are navigated and selected? Can you select books with it? Documentation is definitely lacking in this area. With voice guide enabled, will it be possible to use Kindle as outlined in the rest of the manual, without looking at the screen at all?

2) Do menus wrap? Would it be possible to enable the voice guide and TTS features without sighted assistance? If not, I would recommend that it should be. 

3) With text to speech reading of Kindle ebooks, is it possible to navigate or read by smaller increments? In other words, can I navigate a book by word, or even by character? If I need to have an unfamiliar name or term spelled, is this possible? These features are essential if Kindle is to be used by a student in a classroom environment. 

4) Does voice guide or text to speech work in the Web browser? Can it be used, not only to read Web content but to navigate to that content? Is it possible to browse the Kindle store to purchase books, again, using only text to speech and voice guide? 

5) Will it be possible to enable text to speech for blind users on books where it is by default disabled? If not, is there some way to know whether a book is TTS-enabled before purchasing it? I would hate to buy a book, only to find I am unable to read it. 

In short, I would like some assurance that Amazon is working towrd real accessibility to the Kindle, and not just a token effort that amounts to little more than a toy.