[gui-talk] Problems Ordering From Amazon.com

[Gerald Levy]

Amazon.com claims that it has "enhanced" the accessible version of its web site for screen readers.  I just used this accessible version of Amazon.com with JAWS to order some hearing aid batteries, and had a very frustrating experience, to say the least.  Everything proceeded fine until I reached the page for selecting shipping options.  Normally, there should be a group of radio buttons that let you select the desired shipping speed, which in most cases, would be free shipping.  But imagine my surprise when I heard the list of shipping options with no corresponding radio buttons; there was apparently no way to select the desired shipping option.  I clicked on the continue button, not knowing what to expect, and lo and behold, on the next page, the radio buttons magically appeared.  The free shipping option was already selected, so I clicked on the select payment method button.  On the payment page, everything appeared to be in order, so I clicked on the place your order button.  Suddenly, JAWS stopped talking, and I had no idea whether my order had been placed successfully.  I launched NVDA, which took about 5 minutes to launch.  I landed on the page that thanked me for my order, so I knew that my order had been placed successfully.  But JAWS still would not speak, and I could not even access the Windows Task Manager or Start menu, leading me to believe that my computer had crashed.  I pressed the eject button for the CD/DVD drive, and to my surprise, as the disk tray slid open, JAWS suddenly came back to life.  Was this just a coincidence?  I was without JAWS speech for about 10 minutes.  I closed NVDA, and everything appeared to be back to normal, much to my great relief, and I received an email confirmation of my order.  But should this have happened in the first place if accessibility has been "improved"?  Amazon seems to constantly tinker with its web site to the great detriment of its blind users, and there seems to be nothing anybody can do about it.  Has anyone else experienced problems lately ordering merchandise from the regular or accessible Amazon.com sites?  Thanks for any insights or feedback.

Gerald