While this is good news, YouTube’s automatic captions are notoriously inaccurate. They rely on Google’s voice recognition technology which is unreliable, particularly when there is background noise, music or unusual accents.
Funded by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network and first launched in March, sociABILITY helps people with sensory or mobility impairment overcome the accessibility barriers found in six of the world’s most popular social networking tools. The report and tip sheets guide people through getting started on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Skype and blogging.
The project, which was published in March, guides people with vision impairment, hearing impairment or restricted mobility into getting started on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Skype and blogging tools. In particular, sociABILITY guides users through overcoming access barriers when using assistive technology such as a screen reader.
According to Facebook, newsfeed updates will load faster and actions such as commenting and clicking 'like' will be updated in real time. However, our testing of the updated app on an iPhone 4S shows a number of features that are still inaccessible using VoiceOver.
Some of the new accessibility barriers include:
