Visually impaired computer users are being denied access to some of the most popular websites on the Internet because of user registration policies, according to the American Foundation for the Blind.  

Social networking sites allow users to upload photos, describe their hobbies, find new artists and musicians, and express their creativity by creating custom layouts and graphics for their personal pages. These sites include Friendster, Facebook, and MySpace, which is the most popular with a current member count of 47.3 million.  

The roadblock that visually impaired Internet-users run up against is the process required for creating their own accounts on these sites. The way a new user registers usually requires a person to view a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). A CAPTCHA test creates random letters and numbers that the potential user must view and then re-type. CAPTCHAs are used to indicate to the website that a person is creating an account by choice, and the account is not being automatically made by another computer or program. This reduces spam that a website must deal with. 

But CAPTCHAs do not usually include the details in their programs (ALT text) that allow screen readers to translate the text into voice. Only one of the social networking websites, Facebook, offers an email alternative for registering with the site.  

The irony is that, once a user can pass through the CAPTCHA process, most of the templates for these sites are well-labeled and easily understood by visually impaired users.  

Source from AFB: http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=57&TopicID=167&DocumentID=3153 

AFB’s update about Facebook: http://www.afb.org/blog/blog_comments.asp?TopicID=2272