Advocacy Assistance with DirecTV App Issue

Dear Applevis Community, As many may be aware the most recent DirecTV app update rendered the iPhone app totally inaccessible. I have attempted to reach DirecTV’s app developer(s)/engineer(s) to explain the issue and how it is affecting the visually impaired community. DirecTV will not allow me to contact the app developer(s)/engineer(s) directly. The best I have been able to do is contact the Office of the President. Their representative forwarded my concerns to the app engineer(s) on my behalf. Although I didn’t receive an actual response from the engineer, the representative summarized their response as follows…. Summary: It was not our intent for our app to work with the accessibility feature. We design our app using native elements for design and function. It was recently updated to remain consistent across all platforms and although still works, not to the expectations of the user. At this time, we have no information as to when or if we will be making the necessary changes to make our apps fully compatible. Based on this information I would like to ask the Applevis community to assist me in continuing to contact DirecTV and advocating the need to fix the latest update so it’s accessible. And to request that they include accessibility functionality in the app on an ongoing basis. I would also like to ask that everyone pass this request along to other visually impaired individuals and discussion groups. That way we can show DirecTV that we are a large community and shouldn’t be ignored or left out when this or any other app is created, changed &/or enhanced. Steps for Contacting Direc TV’s Office of the President via the Website: Note: I used JAWS on the website and it read the elements well. Access DirecTV’s website at www.directv.com. Locate and click the “our company” link at bottom of the page. Locate and click the “executive team” link on the our company page. Locate and click “Ellen Filipiak”, Senior VP Customer Care link on the executive team page. This will open a page with form fields to send an email message. Note: There is no “capsha” to deal with in order to send the message. Note: If you don’t have a phone number tied to a DirecTV account, just use whatever phone number you are comfortable providing. I filled in 999-999-9999- under the “alternate phone number field to ensure the message would be sent since I didn’t have an alternate # to provide. FYI, You can send a letter via “snail” mail to the following individuals: Michael White, CEO DirecTV Inc. P.O. Box 6550 Greenwood Village, CO 80155-6550 AND TO Romulo C. Pontual, EVP & Chief Technology Officer DirecTV Inc. P.O. Box 6550 Greenwood Village, CO 80155-6550 I appreciate everyone’s assistance with this matter. Hopefully DirecTV will acknowledge that this is an important issue that they must address quickly. Thank you, Adam Lawrence