Accessibility News
Take two minutes to share your priorities with us
By Laurie Kubitz (she/her), Senior TAP Accessibility Consultant
Public service employees are busy and don’t always have time to hunt down essential information and documentation. The Technology Accessibility Program (TAP) team respects your time and your passion for equitable access so we’re working hard to simplify your experience with finding and using state accessibility informational resources.
Help TAP help you by completing the one-question State Accessibility Information Survey which takes less than two minutes to complete. Your feedback will help us understand what matters most to you so we can make your top accessibility compliance tasks easier to complete.
Your success equals Coloradans’ success. The quicker and easier you can find what you need, the further you can extend your service reach to people with disabilities and ultimately all Coloradans.
Many thanks in advance for your valuable time and feedback!
Announcing Aira ASL
Coming soon, Colorado Department of Motor Vehicle locations will include free, on-demand American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation for customers who are deaf. Beginning in February, a new mobile application called Aira ASL will be available as part of a pilot program at select state DMV offices, meaning that members of the Deaf community can use their mobile device to have a live, expert ASL interpreter on hand.
All state of Colorado buildings and spaces already offer free visual interpretation through the Aira Explorer mobile app for people who are blind or have low vision. We will offer more information in the coming weeks!
Accessibility and You
All about CAPTCHAs
By Beckie Bean (she/her), TAP Accessibility Consultant
Are you a human? Prove it! Solve a puzzle.
How many times have you come across this on the web?
These tests are called CAPTCHAs, Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart. Turing Tests, invented by Alan Turing, can help determine whether responses provided by an application (often called bots) are distinguishable from the responses from humans. You can use a CAPTCHA when you want to prevent automated bots from performing actions on your website.
However, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of CAPTCHA. Traditional CAPTCHAs can be difficult or even impossible for people with disabilities to solve, which creates barriers to their access. In addition to accessibility, “[i]t is important to acknowledge that using a CAPTCHA as a security solution is becoming increasingly ineffective” (Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA: Alternatives to Visual Turing Tests on the Web, W3C).
When determining whether to implement CAPTCHAs on your website, consider the following:
- First, identify the problem you’re trying to solve with a CAPTCHA. Try to be specific when defining the problem, so that you can find the best solution.
- Then, evaluate if you need a CAPTCHA. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Are we gathering sensitive and/or mission critical information on the form? If yes, then you may need a CAPTCHA for your webform, but it isn’t the only option for security.
- Are there alternatives? Yes, there are alternative methods to a traditional CAPTCHA! You may be able to work with your developer to alter the workflow and/or implement a solution on the server side.
- Is this going to negatively affect accessibility and/or the user experience? Unfortunately, the answer to this is often yes. It is not recommended to use a CAPTCHA on forms that are meant for people with disabilities, particularly those for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) grievance submissions and ADA/accessibility accommodation requests.
- Determine which kind of CAPTCHA will fit your needs. There are many kinds of CAPTCHAs available. So be sure to pick one that fixes the problem you identified, while also allowing the best user experience, including for people with disabilities.
- Evaluate when a CAPTCHA needs to be used. Does it need to be completed by every user, every time? You don’t always have to present a CAPTCHA to your website users. Many solutions evaluate the website visitor’s behavior on your site to determine whether it is a customer, bot or bad actor. Then they will only present a CAPTCHA when necessary to limit bots.
If you are experiencing issues on your website where you think you may need to use a CAPTCHA solution, review our CAPTCHAs and Accessibility presentation (Slides) to help you decide which solution may be right for your situation.
Accessibility Quick Tips
Tips on video captions
By Karen Pellegrin (she/her), TAP Manager
Closed captions are primarily for deaf and hard of hearing users, people with cognitive disabilities and those who want to enhance their understanding and experience of the dialogue or are watching without sound. They can be turned on and off using the video player’s control functions. Open captions always are in view and cannot be turned off and are also known as burned-in or embedded captions.
For blind and low vision users, clear audio and narration is what makes videos accessible along with audio descriptions, as needed. For deaf and hard of hearing users, captions are what makes videos more accessible by displaying text information on screen, including sound and narration.
Screen reader users do not read closed captions by default and blind or low vision users do not typically turn captions on unless they want to. Screen readers also do not read open captions because they are burned onto the screen and therefore cannot be accessed by screen readers.
Thank you for the tremendous work and support you offer to our fellow Coloradans. We wish all of you a wonderful holiday and happy new year!
Upcoming events
axe-con 2025 Digital Accessibility Conference
Dates: Feb. 25-27, 2025
Location: Virtual
From Deque’s axe-con Building Accessible Experiences Conference web page: axe-con is the world’s largest digital accessibility conference. We welcome developers, designers, business users, and accessibility professionals of all experience levels to a unique conference experience focused on building, testing, and maintaining accessible digital experiences. Registration is free and open.
Notable & Quotable
“Digital accessibility is important for everyone, especially Deaf-Blind people, because it gives them access to everything. It's not leveling the playing field. It’s letting them into the playing field. It's essential.”
- Ruth Fuller, Adaptive Technology Supervisor at Helen Keller Services