earlier this week i was helping two of my housemates (leroy and miguel) get set up with gmail accounts. they had both come to me talking about how difficult it is to get a job these days without having an email address. i sat down with miguel and we started the gmail account registration process. the first thing that threw me was something i’ve never noticed before. if you aren’t technology savvy or if you don’t have the best vision, deciphering those little captcha boxes is nearly impossible (what is a captcha?). typically i just thought of those things as a minor to moderate annoyance, but neither leroy nor miguel could read their respective captcha’s 100% correctly.
after some fiddling around with usernames and finishing up the form, we got miguel set up with his gmail account. next up was leroy. after pretty much the same process and completing the registration form, leroy clicked the appropriate button to create his account (the same button miguel clicked). we arrived at a page stating that an sms confirmation was required to complete the account creation and we were asked to insert a cell phone number. mind you, leroy has no cell phone and his other main access to a phone is the the land line here at the gcw house.
by now a red flag has gone up in mind: something that i thought was relatively simple for everyone to do (getting a free email account) has had at least two road-blocks for someone who is or has recently been homeless. i saw a link at the bottom of the page that said ‘what if i don’t have an sms device?’ after finding it i cooled off a little bit, thinking maybe there’s an alternative. when the page loaded it said something to this effect: get one or borrow one. i’m not totally sure about this, but the few homeless people i know in gainesville have mostly homeless friends, most of whom wouldn’t have access to sms devices.
so why would google have a randomized sms confirmation in some of their account registration? actually, the more important question is why did google assume that everyone who wants an email address with them has access to an sms device?
community with people different than yourself can do wonders for prevent inadvertent alienation.
the problem: lack of interaction with homeless.
my proposed solution: get to know some homeless people.
old man mark
