Deth

Fitness and everything else

Audio CAPTCHAs Suck Just As Much As Visual CAPTCHAs

I had to sign into Microsoft live today for some reason. Well being visually impaired like I am makes the graphical ones hard to read. Usually it takes me a bunch of tries to get it right which really is an inconvenience but it’s the normal thing now.

As usual reading the text really sucked. I happened to mouse over an icon that was too small for me to really tell what it was but the title said “use audio mode” I thought how great! I’ll be able to actually do what I need to do without a bunch of failed attempts. I was in for a surprise. It harder for me to understand the audio than it was to struggle to read the text. The voice was distorted and hard to understand. To add to that they had another “voice” to throw off automated programs.

Oh well.. Back to trying to guess from the picture which luckily only took 2 tries. It was one of the easier ones to read with high contrast.

It really irks me that with all the technology which should increase accessibility they have to do such annoying things to stop spammers and other people who up to no good. There has to be a better way. Let’s face it. They get through anyways so why go through so much trouble and waste other people’s time to do nothing in the long run?