[213/365] adventures in accessibility

[cosmolinguist]

Of course.

Of course the Accessible Travel Policy is a PDF.

PDFs are notoriously inaccessible, and the text of this one was in a weird font, light text on a dark background so all but unreadable for me.

Near the end of the PDF, it told me it was available in a number of formats "on our website" and it listed several: Word document, audio, braille, BSL, easy read, etc. But I tried clicking on those (they were in big boxes, even white boxes that had dark text in them for a change!), none of them are links. I got this PDF sent to me, so I go to the website in search of these other formats: the only one I can find there is the PDF!

(Also I wonder how Welsh speakers feel about their language being listed with the rest of the "Alternate formats." I wouldn't be the one to say "they're treating being Welsh like a disability!" but I am sure someone would. I think that's kind of ableist tbh, but also I think this is an utterly ridiculous situation.)

The PDF said "contact us if you need anything else" but the website said contact us for any of these. The PDF is three years old now though so maybe the website has changed in that time. Still I can't imagine that even the single audio and video file were that big a deal, never mind the simple heckin Word document I actually wanted.

I only want to read the policy because I am trying to make a complaint! I don't need anything else to complain about!

Reluctantly, I looked up how to contact them. No e-mail address. I didn't want to call them so the least worst option was live chat. Which took forever, felt like an AI even after I was told I'd be "transferred to one of my human colleagues," and all that got me was the apparent-human telling me he'd "transfer my request to the local team."

Local to what? Why do they need to send a file "locally"? (See, I wonder if it was still an AI.)

How! hard! is it! to e-mail a Word document! How hard is it to have it on your damn website?!

I still haven't had it emailed to me.