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Re: Assistive Technologies / Screen Readers & Google Analytics

for

From: Karl Groves
Date: Feb 21, 2014 6:51AM

This topic comes up occasionally and the general consensus is basically
"why can't people just make their sites accessible?"

Here's a post I wrote on the subject:
http://www.karlgroves.com/2013/05/13/can-we-track-how-many-users-with-disabilities-access-our-site/in
which I say:

"Finally, there's the question of ethics surrounding detecting users with
disabilities. Persons with disabilities are a protected class according to
ADA and similar anti-discrimination laws worldwide. Users may be highly
resistant to having their disabilities identified as they go throughout the
web. Most persons with disabilities would really just rather that *the Web
just work* for them. "


On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 3:04 AM, Ravindra Kumar Jain
< <EMAIL REMOVED> >wrote:

> HI all,
> I have gone through sites to search if their is a definite way to track if
> the person using Assistive Technology like screen reader can be
> tracked using Google Analytics or any other way. Also gone through
> this previous discussion @ webaim
>
> http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread?threadR59
> and Stackoverflow
>
>
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18190572/using-javascript-how-can-you-track-if-a-website-visitor-is-using-a-screen-reade
>
> But till now mostly the answer is negative , as said in the above
> posts that assistive technology like Screen Reader is a totally
> different program altogether.
> My question is this
>
> "Can't Companies like Google (Analytics) and Screen Reader
> manufacturers like Freedom Scientific (JAWS), Apple (voiceover),
> nvaccess (nvda) and
> Accessibility Api's Specialist like Microsoft (msaa), Linux (ATK) ,
> and Apple ( Mac OS X Accessibility Protocol) come up with a solution
> for tracking persons using screen readers with analytics ? "
> Is it so difficult ? Is their already some work going on in this direction
> ?
> Can't the Screen Reader manufacturers embed a code in the users system
> for installing a plugin after running setup to track persons using
> AT's like screen readers with google analytics?
> I am sure this will definitely help a lot for everyone.
>
> Thanks ,
>
> Ravindra Kumar Jain
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > > >



--

Karl Groves
www.karlgroves.com
@karlgroves
http://www.linkedin.com/in/karlgroves
Phone: +1 410.541.6829