Thanks to the folks that invited me to join as a friend on Facebook.  I have to tell you though that it is a frustrating site for someone who uses a screen reader.  I’m not sure I could have used it at all were it not for the little vision I have.  As you’re signing up, it has drop-down lists that update as you go.  You’re supposed to click one of the choices, but if you’re using a screen reader you don’t even know they are there.  I don’t know if it is essential to click one of the choices, but it appeared that there was hidden info for each choice that you couldn’t enter if you couldn’t’ see the list.  For example, I can type in Texas Tech, or Oak Park High School.  In the first case it might have been an exact match and picked up Texas Tech in Lubbock, but what if I had typed Texas Tech University instead?  Oak Park is listed simply as Oak Park High, not Oak Park High School, and there are several of them.  Chances are my entry would not be matched appropriately at all unless I could see to click the list item that showed Kansas City as the location.  Admittedly that wouldn’t matter a lot to me.  It was a big place and I didn’t know how to make friends.  A lot of people knew who I was because I could be seen in the halls with a cart full of the extra things I needed to help with class work, and a few were unfortunately run over by it.  I didn’t know many people.  I think I might remember one or two names.  Then there’s the visual confirmation.  I understand why they do that.  In fact, I use it on the church’s site out of the same necessity.  It keeps malicious people from running scripts that sign up multiple accounts and spamming everyone they can find.  I have an audio confirmation link so that someone who is blind can get past the confirmation, and to their credit so do they, but I couldn’t understand it either.  It too must be garbled to keep someone from employing voice recognition and getting through.  On the second one I encountered I finally gave up after several misses on different phrases.  To get around dealing with that, you can have your account confirmed with a text message sent to your cell phone.  That’s great if you can see or can afford to shell out several hundred dollars for a phone that can talk.  To top it all off, they don’t give you a confirmation password box, so if you mistype your password as I apparently did you will not know until the site refuses to let you back in.  Maybe it was there and I missed it, but if so why did it let me in the first time?  The reset screen has the confirmation, but the page’s underlying code is not designed in a screen reader friendly fashion, so again I resorted to magnification.

I went through with it though.  Our church needs to get in touch with younger people.  This is one of the ways people communicate now, so I’ll eventually get around to setting up a Myspace profile too.  This just highlights the need for what we’re doing.  This post is a bit plaintive, but the truth is the world doesn’t conform to our needs, and should not be required to.  Though I am thankful for the help I get and know I couldn’t’ do without it, I am ultimately responsible for my life.  That is true for all of us.  Though I have indulged in a little complaining about a less than accessible web site, it’s up to me to deal with the world as it is.  I can ask for changes, but I have no right to demand them.

What I can do is make the world a little better for someone else, and that’s what we’re trying to do.  I’ve always been against creating enclaves of people with disabilities.  We need to be out in the “real world” doing what we were meant to do.  However, I see the need for a system of outreach and support that brings people to that place.  There are numerous organizations that will meet physical needs, and that’s important.  I expect we’ll do that and our church certainly does.  Sadly lacking are churches seeking to meet the emotional and spiritual needs of people affected by disability.  That has a physical component, in that we must go to them.  Many cannot come to us.  I have the same problem.  I’ve been known to pick churches simply because I could get there.  We have in mind a network of small churches in geographically convenient locations that can meet the needs of people like us.  We must give out of what we have been given.  We are blessed to be a blessing.