Negoslav Sabev talks about how critical accessibility is

Negoslav explains how a lack of accessibility on government websites may mean blind screen reader users can't access critical documents. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encountered on the web. Just a reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from my website at http://a11yrules.com. I want to take the time to thank Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform. They are powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. They do this through product testing and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work with your team at http://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Negoslav Sabev. Hi, Negoslav, how are you? Negoslav Hi Nic, I'm fine, thank you. Nic We've been interacting on Twitter on enough for for a while. And finally we connected. So thank you for for willing to come and chat with me about the barriers you experience on the web. Negoslav Thank you for the invitation. Nic You know by now my first question is what's your disability or your impairments? So can you tell us a little bit more about that? Negoslav I'm blind. I was born with glaucoma. And through a series of operations. Finally, I reached here. So since 2001, I'm totally blind. And I'm using computers and other electronic devices since 2003. Nic What's your favorite screen reader? Negoslav Oh, it's it's different experience on different devices. So it's hard to say to tell that on Windows, I mostly use JAWS because I'm doing a lot of text editing. I also use NVDA, for reasons. And on iOS device. So you know that there is only one screen reader and that's quite sober. So I use them. Nic Thank you. What would you say your greatest barrier or your biggest pet peeve is when you're using the internet. Negoslav Sometimes I feel that the developers and teams that are working on websites are trying to hide... trying to hide something from me and try to lock me out. What I mean is that sometimes text that should be heading is not a heading and just a big and bolded text. Sometimes there's a CAPTCHA that I have to solve. And it's not accessible at all. Even it has no alternative. Or the audio that is playing as an alternative is so bad that I can hardly hear it, even though I have very good hearing abilities. And I can give some examples. Last year, I was trying to get documents from the Ministry of Justice that I'm not been I have not been judged. And it I went to the website, I filled the form, I paid the tax to get this document and the document was in electronic format. And I had to open a link to to see it. But when I get got there and open the link, there was a CAPTCHA that had no alternative that even the screen reader couldn't see as a picture. Nic Wow. Negoslav So I was locked out and never saw this document and I was contacting the people that were working there some government agencies but unfortunately, no result and sometimes accessibility work is happening so slowly. That it's so bad. It's so bad. I read today someone who was tweeting. "I want it all, I want it now. But step by step." Nic Yes. And so what you're describing is an experience where it's not just a small barrier, it's not just something that's annoying. It's not that you can't order something on an online shopping platform, it really is that you aren't able to get critical government documents because they're creating barriers for you. Negoslav Yes, unfortunately, there are many other examples, I can give that somehow a content is hidden, I had such an experience, while trying to enter a pin that was presented in a totally inacce