A blind or deaf user may not need to access your particular site, but as far as the internet community is concerned, this is simply not true. You would be surprised how many blind people are on the internet and using computers quite efficiently. Back when I used to work at the Redmond, WA based software giant, the guy 2 offices down was completely blind, yet he managed to do his job quite well. I'm not an expert on useability by any means, but I am aware that it exists. There are screen readers that convert text to speech, and there are braille displays which translate text to braille.timWebUK wrote:Very valid points, however, I must make something clear... I can see no purpose a blind and deaf person would require a website for. They cannot interact with computers easily - if at all. They require braille. So dismissing reCAPTCHA because it doesn't provide an interface for a blind and deaf person to pass a test is slightly absurd.
My response so far has only encompassed blind people, yet there are many shades of blindness. Most of us will experience vision deterioration with age or may already experience difficulty due to color blindness. As long as we are human, optometrists will not become obsolete.
Yes, neither method is entirely effective and all CAPTCHA's are not equal. The only way to make them more effective is the make the puzzles more difficult. The problem with making difficult puzzles is that you end up rejecting more valid users. There should not be an IQ test to log in. I suppose it is up the developer to make a decision, based on the needs of the site, to toe the line between burdening users and filtering bots. The bottom line is, no method is 100% effective.timWebUK wrote:Also, simple math's problems? They could be solved just as easily as a Captcha by character recognition software... I mean Windows7 has formula program built in allowing you to draw formulas and it converts it's to computer copyable characters.
As a side note, I've always wondered why they put braille on drive-up ATM's...