Is a CAPTCHA Test Really the Way to Go?

CAPTCHA tests have become more and more popular. These visual confirmations, needed to post a reply, register somewhere, …, can be seen a lot more than a year ago.

The description of a CAPTCHA test:

A CAPTCHA test is a program that can generate and grade tests that:

• Most humans can pass.
• Current computer programs can’t pass.

But is this really such a good solution? I have just read a post about the Windows Genuine Advantage Program giving blind users problems, because they have to enter a key that can only be read visually.

Something that I immediately thought of was the CAPTCHA test… If this gets widespread, all blind people will basically be unable to do anything. They cannot see the test, their browsers can’t help, so they can’t register, reply or do anything else where there’s such a test.

There isn’t a real solution to it, you can’t give the blind any information about the test, because that would defeat the purpose of the test. If someone invents software to help blind people with it, spammers can use it as well, so I don’t see a solution to help blind people with CAPTCHA, besides not implementing one.

Update: audio CAPTCHAs soon became the usual alternative for blind users, and today most sites use invisible checks that score behaviour instead of showing a puzzle.