Web Site Accessibility Blog

On Wednesday, May 11, 2005 Yahoo! Music debuted the New Stevie Wonder video “So What the Fuss?� The significance of this music video is that Stevie Wonder has used new technology to implement an alternate track for low-vision and blind users. Rapper Busta Rhymes narrates the alternate version of the video, providing an insightful and enjoyable mental picture of the video.

From the press release on the Y! Music site, Stevie comments that “Until now music videos have been very one dimensional for those who are blind or with low vision. Now all music video fans will be able to apply their vision to my video thanks to the descriptive technique.� The video will be able to offer the second version with the new technology which can air on all SAP-accessible TV channels.

While listening to the narration and the background music, Busta Rhymes places an astounding image in one’s mind. His vocal imagery was successful in creating this new technique, as the words and inflections were able to communicate the energy of both the video and the music.

However, the Yahoo! Music site is noticeable unfriendly to blind and low-vision users. No navigation buttons employ alt text, especially in the artist and song search function. Even worse, when selecting a video to view, Y! Music tests the media player connection and asks the user to press the “I see the video� button, which is a graphic button with no alt text. While I don’t expect Y!Music to change their entire video format for one accessible video, it was surprising to see the entire navigation focused on site cues, rather than textual cues for universal access. On a side note, Y! Music is also unable to play videos in a Mozilla browser other than Netscape 4.7x or 7.1, sorry FireFox.

Stevie Wonder has been one of the most talented musicians and innovators of our time. I think it was perfect that he would be the one to unveil an exciting idea and technology that would provide all fans a chance to enjoy a primarily visual medium.