Last Updated on: 2nd January 2022, 04:40 pm
Because I’m an optimist for thinking I would need this sooner than later, and a weirdo for liking to plan ahead, I decided to set up my profile on ArriveCAN. I tried once, but it assumed I was traveling right then, and wanted me to start filling out a big ol’ form. But later, I saw in one of their updates that you could enter passport and vaccination information in advance. I thought that was a good idea, since I had heard rumblings that the app was an inaccessible pile, and the last thing I want to do while traveling is smash into more barriers. I already need to certify that my guide dog will not eat other passengers or pee on their shoes, so I did not need to deal with this too. So off I went to get myself set up.
And me oh my what a mess! I’m not sure if this is inaccessible or just broken, but the process was so painful.
- I managed to get it done, but I had to switch locations from my desktop computer to my phone to the web browser on the phone several times.
- Sometimes I would be doing fine in one location, until I got to the middle of a process, and then a button just wouldn’t work, so I would have to switch to the other device. But because I was half way through a process, I had to start over.
- Even when I was on the phone’s browser, sometimes opening the browser to that page would open the app instead, even though I was trying to use the browser rather than the app, hoping to circumvent the accessibility issues.
- When you reset your password, and you receive a code that you must enter to verify the change, if entering the code on the phone, I couldn’t find a “continue” or “next” or “ok” button of any kind, so I had to abandon the process on the phone and do it on the computer.
And this is an app you’re supposed to use while traveling…when it is not expected that everyone will drag their computer along for the ride. Admittedly, the part I did should be done at home, but travelers have to enter results of a PCR test, which they have to get when on the trip, where they may not have brought every piece of technology they own.
I hope, whenever the day comes that I cross the border, that I don’t run into problems due to ArriveCAN inaccessibility. By the sounds of it, the story is no entry into ArriveCAN, no entry into Canada, and I don’t need that crap.
