For the blind and visually impaired users of Yahoo’s mail and messaging applications, the Internet giant has some happy tidings.

They can now access the Yahoo mail service and send, receive and read mails much like everyone else.

The screen reading software that the blind use to access contents on the Internet doesn’t encounter slowdowns, as the new Yahoo mail is fully accessible. Till now, the service was not easily accessible to lay blind users. “We have been working on making our products accessible for some time now,” said Victor Tsaran, Yahoo’s accessibility manager, who was in the city to demonstrate the mail service. “We are happy to come out with this service and express our commitment to include the blind and visually impaired users in our mission to provide a better user experience.”

By clicking the “classic” option on opening yahoo.com, the blind user can easily navigate to different sections of the mail and listen to their screen reader software read things like the sender, the date of receipt, and subject etc.

Mr Tsaran, who is visually challenged, told reporters that the accessible mail has been already rolled out and should be fully available to users in a month from now. He said Yahoo search and messaging services have also been made screen reader-friendly. Incidentally, Mr Tsaran, from Ukraine, was a philosophy student in the US where he discovered computers before pursuing it as a career.

Competetition
Though Google have already been offering accessible mail and search services, Yahoo’s announcement is a sign that they too are serious about accessibility. Google has in fact gone a step ahead and is said to be working on ranking search results according to accessibility and it’s interesting to see if Yahoo can catch up with them. Since the blind use screen readers — to get a voice output of the content that appears on the screen — they have been encountering problems with many websites that contain visually rich content like graphics, which slows down the navigation of screen readers. Despite the World Wide Web Consortium providing clear accessible guidelines for website developers, leading service providers like Yahoo have been slow in incorporating these guidelines. 

The demonstration took place at Mithrajyothi Trust for the Blind, a Bangalore-based NGO that provides computer training, among other services for the blind and visually impaired.