petition to Digidesign for accessibility

[Jerry Halatyn]

I'll try to make this as brief as possible. Whereas, Pro Tools used to be accessible to blind computer users under OS 9 thanks to Digidesign's tweaking of the DAE code to make it compatible with the outSPOKEN screen reader, everything from PT version 6 and on has not been accessible, mainly because there wasn't a screen reader for OS X. Since Apple introduced VoiceOver, the built-ins screen reader in OS X, Pro Tools has not yet been made compatible with it. Not only are there many existing blind PT users still using OS 9 and PT 5.3, being left further and further behind with each release of Pro Tools, there are hundreds of blind students all over the world who encounter PT on Macs in music and audio programs and have no access to it because it hasn't been made compatible with VoiceOver.

There's an online petition to Digidesign regarding the accessibility of Pro Tools with VoiceOver. We're simply asking Digidesign to follow Apple's programming guidelines for universal access. We're almost at 1,000 signatures. Please read it, sign it and help us make Digidesign aware of the importance of this issue. Hard copies of the petition will be sent to Digidesign in a couple of weeks. It's at

Thanks so much!