Audio Captcha Demo Example Sample Section 508 Demonstration Sound Form

Audio Captcha Demonstration

Why use an Audio Captcha?

What's Captcha?

Captcha is the mechanism used to try to determine if a human being, as opposed to a machine, is attempting to enter information on your website. If you have a contact form, a blog, or other method of getting feedback from your website visitors then having some type of Captcha on your website is probably going to be necessary. You can think of Captcha as a lock that should be easy for humans to open but hard for machines to decipher.

Some people may be sufficiently turned off at the thought of navigating yet another visual Captcha that they turn away from your site. Providing an alternative, that may be easier for some people to navigate, may prove an incentive for more people to leave the website feedback that you require.

Another excellent reason for considering alternatives to visual Captcha mechanisms comes in the form of a government regulation called Section 508. Section 508 says that when Federal agencies develop or use electronic information, they are required to make that information available to everyone equally.

So far, Section 508 requirements apply only to US government websites or websites with a financial association with the federal government. However, it makes good sense, from a business as well as a human standpoint, to provide accessibility alternatives for people with different physical challenges.

David Summer Communications offers complete Contact Form and Audio/Visual Captcha solutions.

A Practical Demonstration of our Audio Captcha

David Summer has developed a simple and easy to use audio Captcha implementation. David wrote about this method for realizing audio Captcha in a feature article Implementing Audio CAPTCHA that was published in the January 2008 issue of Dr. Dobb's magazine.

This is a sample demonstration of our unique audio Captcha we call Equal Captcha. We are presenting it here synchronized with a visual Captcha. The Captcha is reset after each try whether successful or not, as it should be, for added security.

Notice in the above example of our audio Captcha that the instructions are very concise. This is especially important for someone using a screen reader, like the Jaws screen reader. Having overly verbose instructions just wastes time for someone who is listening to every word on the page.

Another feature to notice in this audio Captcha example is that the user can work with the Captcha without employing the mouse at all. Instead of having to use a mouse to click on an audio player or speaker icon, the user is asked to type a particular key to start the audio. Then, once the audio has started, the focus is placed on the proper text box and submitted for validation upon the user pressing the Enter key.

The Captcha validation in this example is performed using Ajax technology. This makes the interaction very smooth for the user. Notice the page didn’t "blink" at all after you pushed the Enter key. At David Summer Communications, we are thoroughly familiar with all aspects of developing websites to meet Section 508 guidelines

Contact Complete

Do you sell to, or contract with, the Federal Government? Then you need to make your website Section 508 compliant. Do you want to make sure that you are encouraging easy access to your Contact Form for all your potential clients? Do you feel, as we do, that offering alternatives for sight challenged visitors is just the right thing to do? Equal Captcha is the answer you’re looking for.

Equal Captcha is David Summer Communications' complete Audio/Visual Captcha package. We integrate the service into your website (or you can install yourself) as part of your Contact Form or other user feedback mechanism. Our Equal Captcha Audio/Visual Captcha package is self-contained, it includes all the necessary files to generate and validate the Captcha. If you prefer to install it yourself, we provide easy to follow step-by-step setup instructions.

Contact Complete Would you like a better, easy to use, Contact Form for your website? We also offer Contact Complete, a complete Contact Form package that includes our Equal Captcha system. Contact Complete uses our smooth interaction verification and mailing system, which is implemented using Ajax technology. Contact Complete is offered as a custom installation service by David Summer Communications or in a "do-it-yourself" version, with complete instructions.

Contact David Summer today for a price quote on either our Equal Captcha or Contact Complete solutions.