Magnatune upgrades their site, accessibility issues found, E-mail fixes them

August 21, 2013:
Woodland Hills, CA

to: Magnatune record label team for a job well done

OK, so I’m going to ask this question. How many of you have had some accessibility issues with a web site. You politely send an E-mail to the contact address on site, and you get a response of the nature of that they appreciate the feedback, and it’ll be looked in to, or nothing at all? Magnatune released a new web site in the midst of album releases. Magnatune web site completely rewritten goes in to some detail of what has changed and what is coming. I downloaded the Magnatune music under the old web site which had some accessibility issues, but were managable. What I mean is, there were graphic links but the information within the links made it clear what was happening. Not all the graphical links, but I did find a few.

On the 20th of August, I sent the following E-mail to John, the programmer of Magnatune.

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Hi John,
I was looking at Jay Kishor’s album, and noticed that the site is changing which is a good sign. Unfortunately, the site is not accessible anymore. Once I go in to the album, I can’t find the download link, because it seems you have them in tabs now, and the graphics are not labeled for screen reader access. The web site was accessible before, even the download link on the old page was accessible because the link clearly said download, although it was in link form. I want to bring this to your attention. The artist page itself seems accessible where the CD’s are clearly labeled, but once selecting a CD, the graphics say unknown.
—
Jared Rimer
The Technology blog and podcast
https://technology.jaredrimer.net

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That same evening he wrote back.

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Thanks Jared, I’ll try to get that fixed tomorrow.
-john

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Today, August 21, 2013, I received the following E-mail with the original on top, and his response underneath.

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> I was looking at Jay Kishor’s album, and noticed that the site is changing which is a good sign. Unfortunately, the site is not accessible anymore. Once I go in to the album, I can’t find the download link, because it seems you have them in tabs now, and the graphics are not labeled for screen reader access. The web site was accessible before, even the download link on the old page was accessible because the link clearly said download, although it was in link form. I want to bring this to your attention. The artist page itself seems accessible where the CD’s are clearly labeled, but once selecting a CD, the graphics say unknown.

Ok, I’ve spent quite a good amount of time going through all the pages and adding alt= tags on everything. I’ve used the Firefox Accessibility Extension, as well as Google Chrome’s Accessibility Audit, and all pages now pass. I’ve also browsed the site using the text mode browser “lynx” to make sure it all works w/o graphics and also w/o javascript.

Please let me know if you run into any problems or can find any areas that could be improved.

As someone who suffers from poor eyesight, this is really a topic close to my heart, and I want to make sure this is done well at Magnatune.

Best wishes,

-john

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This blog post Magnatune for the blind was posted today, and gives some details and links to specific tools John uses. This is a webmaster who really wants to hear from his users of his site. Magnatune is a record label, and I have paid them quite a bit of money for a subscription each month, and this is a nice sign. I’m still in talks with John, and he encourages E-mail. They like the fact I broadcast Magnatune on a dedicated server, and it is the stuff I like. You can find that server by going to this Magnatune server page. Thanks John and team for a great job well done. You should be commended for a job well done. I am a tech columnist, giving my thoughts on tech that interests me, and I think it is time for a payback. May you have great success in your journey, and please let me know how I can help.