Logos 8 and screen readers
Hello. Recently I attempted to assist a new Logos user who purchased Logos 8. I have been a user of Logos since 2007 and have seen many variations on accessibility, or lack thereof. Logos 8 is disturbing, as the button to toggle the contents pane on and off is gone. The person was able to receive a refund after technical support staff apologized numerous times and told her that Logos was not accessible.
Users of screen readers have been posting in this forum for many years, asking for improvements in accessibility. We have been told over and over that improvements were coming "soon." I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on Logos products. I am a professor with a doctoral degree, and I recomment Logos to all of my Biblical language students.
What does it take for Logos to consider accessibility important to implement, or at least to maintain a bare minimum so that when someone buys a product for the first time I can teach them how to use it?
The ADA requires seminaries to provide accessible curriculum for their students. If Logos expects to be a part of seminary classrooms, it needs to be made accessible. If you had any idea the power that you held, the money that accessibility could bring in, you would invest in it instead of considering it an impossibility. Making Logos accessible would pay for itself ten times over with new customers who are waiting to be able to purchase resources we can use. I could list you names of 30 people who have turned away because Logos is not accessible. If that means nothing to you, look over my account and multiply it by 30. Does that loss mean something? Does the potential to affect a minimum of 30 lives with the ability to read and learn mean something to you? People who are sighted and choose not to purchase Logos go to their libraries and borrow the books. People who are blind simply wait until another accessible option comes along. Often it never comes. I can tell you that the day I found Libronix was the best day of my life! I tolerate Logos' lack of accessibility because I was already here and I am patient and stubborn in handling tech issues. I read some things on my IOS device. Often I am on a PC, working in the best way that I can. I would not be a language professor today without Logos. Does that mean enough to someone at Logos to be a champion for others who need this kind of empowerment?
Sarah Blake LaRose, D.Min.
Logos user since 2007
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Hi Sarah
I don't understand what changes would be required to make Logos accessible but I also don't understand what you say about the toggle for the contents pane
If I click the icon with three horizonal lines at the top left of a resource (outlined in red)
the table of contents panel opens
Are you referring to something else or am I missing your point?
Graham
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Since I can't see your screen shots, I can't accurately answer your questions. This is a good example of the problems in discussing screen reader accessibility.
I suspect that the interface works normally for a sighted person but has been broken for users of screen readers, at least for users of JAWS. I myself have not upgraded. I have offered several times to assist Logos with testing and learning about accessibility. I have been told that they have tested Logos with JAWS and other screen readers. However, if a person who is a skilled user has not tested these features, we end up with situations like I have described. I am happy to install a test copy of Logos 8 and have someone remote into my system and talk with me about what is different. I cannot confidently upgrade from Logos 7 in this situation, which is highly disappointing.Sarah Blake LaRose, D.Min.
Logos user since 2007
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Don't know that it helps but the LOGOS wiki says that Shift Command C will open the Table of Contents on a Mac. Control Shift C for Windows.
EDIT:
I also just realized that this is an older post so maybe it is a bit late... or not...
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When I tried emailing logos regarding accessibility on Macs, I was told that the product was simply not accessible. It didn't seem like they had plans to make it accessible, and as much as I like the idea of FaithLife, that sort of response shows that the gospel's just a way to make money for them. As in, "we'll preach the gospel to you, as long as you can see like us. Otherwise we don't want to help you.". Maybe that sounds harsh, but I can't apologize. Faithlife, in it's inaccessible desktop apps, have turned away "the least of these".
I'd give faith life the benefit of the doubt and say perhaps it's money or time or skills that prevents them from being able to Mac the desktop app accessible, but the prices for their packages aren't exactly cheap so surely it can't be money. That there are those offering to help with accessibility shows that it can't be a lack of skills. We are stuck at homes with many people having lost their jobs, so surely it can't be a lack of time. Yet even if it were still all of these things, would not God provide anything we need to reach the souls around us?
Some blind people, I thin, use logos on windows and find it reasonably easy to navigate perhaps. I think I too tried a few years ago and found the app ... kind of easy to work with. However, my primary and only machine now is a Mac, and logos is completely inaccessible on the Mac. Should I spend money and use up 50 gigs of my disc space so that I can run bootcamp or a virtual machine just to support an app whose designers aren't interested in making accessible to all people?
I think not. So it really is with great sadness that I'll continue to use Sword and/or accordance on my Mac since those developers are responsive, and perhaps I'll check on logos' accessibility in the next couple of years.
Just so I'm not coming across as too condemning (because that's truly not my point), allow me to make one suggestion. Mac will soon be rolling out computers with their own processor--the same processor used to power their iPads. This means that iPad apps will be able to run on desktop computers. If I could put the iPad app on my computer, as it is right now, I could use logos as the IOS/IPADFOS apps are accessible.
PS: if you now wonder why I've gone on such a rant when the IOS apps are accessible: it's because the mindset behind the inaccessibility of the desktop apps does not reflect christian values, and it's the fact that a christian organization will not use the blessing given through such an app to reach the blind, no matter what device they're on.
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When I tried emailing logos regarding accessibility on Macs,
Is https://app.logos.com/ usable for you on your Mac?
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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Hi,
I thought it used to be, but it doesn't really seem to be any more.
But the point is, unless I'm mistaken, sighted people can read logos material offline on their Macs, but we cannot. If I have to go to a web address to dig into Logos, I can think of other web resources that offer The Word and are more easily navigable. I don't mean to come across as harsh; I'm just discouraged that we call ourselves christians and, for whatever reason, aren't able/willing to make these bible resources more accessible to EVERY follow of The Way.
But then, the christian greats in the past never had such tools, so I suppose logos isn't essential.
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I thought it used to be, but it doesn't really seem to be any more.
I am saddened by this.
But the point is, unless I'm mistaken, sighted people can read logos material offline on their Macs, but we cannot. If I have to go to a web address to dig into Logos, I can think of other web resources that offer The Word and are more easily navigable. I don't mean to come across as harsh; I'm just discouraged that we call ourselves christians and, for whatever reason, aren't able/willing to make these bible resources more accessible to EVERY follow of The Way.
I've been doing what I can (publicly and behind the scenes) as a fellow Logos user (well, actually Verbum user) to encourage as much Accessibility-related development as possible. I believe that the principal difficulty standing in between the present and versions of Faithlife software that are fully or even mostly compatible with screen readers is money. It's expensive to make extremely complicated software like Logos work well with screen readers, and the known customer base that would benefit from (and thus pay for) that development and maintenance just isn't very large. Unfortunately, Faithlife doesn't have the client base of a company like Microsoft or Google.
That said, Faithlife has recently created a new feedback website, https://feedback.faithlife.com, where we can create and vote for suggestions like, "Make the Logos desktop app work with screen readers". Faithlife staff have promised to pay careful attention to that site, and so far, they have. I don't know how well that site itself works for screen readers, however.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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