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Created April 21, 2015 00:25
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Open letter to Spotify re. Accessibility
Hi,
I'm writing to let you know that the Spotify client for OSX (and possibly
other OSs too) is inaccessible to people who are blind and otherwise disabled.
Several people, myself included, have raised this issue in an attempt to
have it fixed but we've been consistently ignored by Spotify staff.
E.g.:
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Support-Accessibility-APIs/idi-p/352224
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Desktop-Other-Make-Spotify-more-accessible-for-blind-amp/idi-p/1078714
That first suggestion dates back to 2013.
Could you please let me know:
a) whether you plan to support accessibility APIs in your product, and
b) what the ETA is for that support
I'm a fan of streaming music services in general, and Spotify in
particular: I think you have a great product, and the first that I've
used that is far more convenient than outright piracy.
I've given Spotify subscriptions as a gift to several family members, and happily
evangelise Spotify to other Linux users due to your client support for
that OS.
Please do the right thing by your blind and disabled users and properly
support accessibility APIs in your product. I'm sure you wouldn't turn
disabled people away from your office; please don't turn them away from
your software either.
@duncan-bayne
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I'll post any replies I receive from Spotify here.

@duncan-bayne
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I received a boilerplate response almost immediately:

Hello Duncan,
Thanks for getting in touch with your feedback.
This sounds like a great idea, thanks for sharing! Please feel free to
share it on our ideas board.
You can get other users to show their support by voting on the idea.
We’ll keep everyone updated on its status. Maybe your idea could even
make it into the app some day!
Let us know if you have any other great ideas or feedback.

Kind regards.
XXXX

@duncan-bayne
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My reply:

XXXX,

I'm disappointed that you chose to reply to my open letter with
boilerplate.

Your email completely fails to address the salient points in my original
email, which were:

  • this suggestion has been active since 2013, and has been rejected
    once
  • as it stands, your application on OSX (and possibly other OSs) is not
    accessible to the blind or otherwise disabled
  • you, i.e. Spotify, really don't seem to care about this

Could you please re-read my original email and reply appropriately?

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