Amazon's e-book reader, the Kindle, has been blocked by 3 US universities as it is currently unusable for blind people. The Kindle DX reader can read out text but it offers no way to navigate its controls and menus that is accessible to blind users.
Arizona State University was sued last year over its trial of Kindle readers as it was deemed to be in direct violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) – the Act prohibits discrimination against people on the basis of their disability and applies to public bodies and all post-secondary educational institutions whether public or private.
The Department of Justice commented that three other US universities had decided not to use or support Kindle devices or other e-book readers that were not fully accessible to blind users – these being Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland; Pace University in New York; and Reed College in Oregon.
In a recent update, Amazon said late last year in December that it would release Kindle machines with an audio menu by summer 2010.
A Amazon spokesman commented:
To make Kindle more useful for the blind, the Kindle team is currently working on an audible menuing system, so blind and vision-impaired readers can easily navigate to books unassisted. In addition, a new super size font will be added to Kindle, increasing the number of font sizes from six to seven. These new features are scheduled for release by the summer of 2010.
