iTunes: Easy on the Ears, Hard on the Eyes

iTunes App Store Screen Shot

Apple has worked hard to make progress towards giving blind people access to the iPod system. The big move for Apple is the 4th generation iPod nano, which offers spoken menus and large font with
high contrast screen and backlight. Unfortunately for me, this came out just before my last iPod upgrade. Apple paired this with improved accessibility in iTunes.

Accessibility in iTunes 8: iTunes 8 is screen-reader friendly. On a Mac using Mac OS X Leopard, it’s compatible with VoiceOver; on a PC using Windows XP or Windows Vista, it’s compatible with GW-Micro Window-Eyes 7.0.

Sadly, Apple focused solely on screen reader integration. Since I am not a big screen reader user, this has done nothing for me. iTunes violates afew basic accessibility principles in terms of readability. Most impartiality, it does not offer a large enough font option. iTunes offers two font choices, but both are too small to read easily. The next problem is the elegant, but low contrast color scheme. Lstly, the built in iTunes Store uses even smaller font, as you can see in the screen shot.

Unfortunately, there is no easy work around. A magnifying program can be useful. I just keep my reading glasses handy. Hopefully, Apple will realize that there is a continuum between 20/20 and 20/200.

Tags: accessibility, apple, itunes, review, software

This entry was posted on April 13, 2009 at 8:35 am and is filed under large print. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.