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Today's Fail

2019-03-23 19:00:58.85672+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

So I follow basic security practices with my email, among other things I don't load images embedded in email. I just received the following from our city's economic development manager, with the subject line: "You're Invited - Help Set Our City Goals".

You don't want to miss this. Petaluma Economic Development | P.O. Box 61, Petaluma, CA 94953 Unsubscribe danlyke@flutterby.com
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Yep, the entire damned content of the message is in images. The only thing that isn't is this little snippet of text.

Now you can say "sure, Dan, but how many competent computer users actually care about mail from the city?", I mean, after all, most people aren't competent computer users and are just using Outlook or whatever with the default settings, but...

Also think about this from the perspective of someone who's disabled and needs to use, say, an assistive screen reader?

I don't know whether to lay this incompetence on Constant Contact, or on the person sending the email, but it is distinctly *not* a good look on city staff.

[ related topics: Photography Microsoft Robotics Embedded Devices Handicaps & Disabilities Economics ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: Today's Fail made: 2019-03-24 01:14:08.833709+00 by: meuon

Exactly the kind of reason I'm not a member of the Chattanooga Technology Council and a bunch of other things.

#Comment Re: Today's Fail made: 2019-03-24 10:30:24.480906+00 by: DaveP

Government agencies are pretty quick to pay attention if you mention that they’re in violation of Section 508 and preventing disabled people from accessing their content. But they don’t proactively check, so you have to point it out. Probably more than once.

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