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    PaidPerPlay: No good if you’re blind…

    19/12/07 by Chris GarrettNo Comments

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    BloggingExperiment made an called “Paidperplay”. I’m all for new advertising services, especially given the rampant reports of shady practice by certain existing players, but this one just stinks!

    The idea behind PaidPerPlay is that they automatically play audio adverts when a user loads your page, guaranteeing what they call “100% conversion” — these are 2 fundamental flaws. Firstly, it’s not a conversion because the users simply had an audio clip played to them, watching a TV advert does not count as a conversion so neither does this… But this is a tiny concern compared to the accessibility nightmare this presents.

    When a person suffering from severe visual impairment uses the internet, they use it through the aid of a piece of software called a Screenreader. Essentially what this does is convert the hypertext on a webpage into spoken word so blind people can still consume the content of the website. Now, imagine if a blind user visits your website, attempting to use their screen reader, and an audio advert starts playing as it loads. It will drown out the screenreader meaning your website is inaccessible and essentially discriminating visually impaired users.

    In the UK you’re not allowed to discriminate people suffering disabilities from any public website and recently in the US, a blind student successfully sued Target.com for not including alt text with their images, so you really should be paying attention to how accessible your website is to people suffering from disabilities.

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