5 ms·

This is interesting. I'm blind, and while I can think of ideas for products/side projects, designing a nice-looking website is such a huge momentum-killer. I me

This is interesting. I'm blind, and while I can think of ideas for products/side projects, designing a nice-looking website is such a huge momentum-killer. I mean, I know that I could just focus on features, keep the site design simple, and build a good design later. Then I visit <insert random Show HN here>, and half the comments are about how some UI element or other breaks on some combination of browser or other, and the last thing I want is to have my idea dismissed because it's ugly. I thought Bootstrap would help with this, but when my sighted GF takes one look at my attempts at site design, her first comments revolve around lack of color, and I don't even know where to begin with that. And yes, I know about themes, but sometimes that feels like I'd have to make my idea fit the theme, whereas this seems to let me pick and choose what elements I want. Unfortunately, when asked to select a hero block, I'm greeted with a series of images. Would you consider adding alt attributes to these? If I knew roughly what they looked like, I could probably pick and choose something semi-appropriate for a given project. I don't know what other issues I'm likely to hit, but I'd be interested in providing additional feedback if this at all seems like a viable direction. Also, just noticed I can't select a hero block via the keyboard. Items aren't tab-focusable and keyboard-selectable. Maybe this won't work at all for me, but I'd really like something between "Here's a fully-formed theme" and "Here's a completely inaccessible website builder that gives you a blank canvas and assumes you don't want to touch the final HTML." :) If anyone knows of anything like that, please do share.

cameronrohani 10y ago
Thank you for this enlightening comment, and apologies that our website isn't more accessible. We'll be looking in to this through out the day and will try to add some better html to accommodate for anyone who may be in a similar boat to you. I'm really sorry we didn't think about this stuff up front, and will do my best to from here on out.
- ndarilek 10y ago
  No worries, I get that we're probably not a demographic you've considered, and like I said, I don't even know if in the end this tool will work for me. To give you an idea of what I'm thinking of, I've looked into https://github.com/dennybritz/neal-react https://github.com/dennybritz/neal-react (unfortunately the hosted demo appears to no longer be up.) I'm sure this will bring out the "JavaScript shouldn't be abused like this!" haters, and I'm not the biggest React fan, but I like that I can position a few high-level components without having to think "I need 2 divs, one that's a panel, one that's X width and another 12-X, etc." Granted, I've never built anything with this React library and don't even know if it looks good, but it's closest to what I want in a page design system. Just give me a few high-level blocks that are responsive and look good, and I'll go from there.
  - cameronrohani 10y ago
    I recently read a really great book about issues similar to this called "politics of design". Making things more accessible to everyone honestly really excites me. I hope that every time I ever make something I get called out on all of it's accessibility flaws. So thank you for bringing it to light :)
  - rhizome 10y ago
    It's a common sentiment on HN that degradability and accessiblity are time and money wasters that have no real value since screenreaders can handle JavaScript now.
    - mrexroad 10y ago
      Examples?
  - astronautjones 10y ago
    This probably sounds idiotic, but I am so wildly inspired by how much more coherent your presence, even here on HN is, as opposed to people who can see. Big up and I hope you have all the success you seek
- odbol_ 10y ago
  Please run your site though an accessibility validator like ACA. At the very least make sure all images have an alt attribute! I feel like so many devs ignore accessibility even though it's not really that hard.
  - steedsofwar 10y ago
    It really tends to me an afterthought. A lot of places that i've worked for, accessibility is never factored with estimates. If it does make it, it's a rushed job, or it never makes it and after few complaints, it's added as needed.
- steedsofwar 10y ago
  I am a software developer/engineer/<whatever the new fad is>, and i am the only "computer guy" in the family. So i've been tasked to create a website for a bakery startup. I couldn't agree more with the previous comment, about creating a website as being a momentum killer! So when i saw this, my initial thoughts were, hmmm another one of 'those' sites. However i'm pleasanlty surprised, sure the elements aren't perfect, and the colours could be more varied, but it's an almost complete site. Replace the graphics, the fonts and text, i'm good to go! I just need to focus on the content and not the boiler plate crap. Thank you!
blauditore 10y ago
I'm not sure, are you now looking for something that does more or less than Bootstrap? While Bootstrap isn't a silver bullet in general, it's surely great if you don't want to write CSS, or only where necessary. And you can always build on top of that. And needless to say, tastes vary wildly: I once started a side project with someone who was virtually my taste counterpart - he liked everything I found ugly and vice versa. So maybe you should get a second opinion on your designs... :P
michaelbuckbee 10y ago
Have you considered Bootswatch? https://bootswatch.com/ https://bootswatch.com/ It's a light set of styles that are applied over top of standard Bootstrap. If you buy a full "Theme" from Envato or where ever, even it's "Bootstrap Based" it is generally so stuffed full of random js libs and heavily customized that it's hard to work with.
- ndarilek 10y ago
  I have, and it's nice, but I like installing Bootstrap via NPM/some other package manager so I can track new versions and include its JS components, and I wish these shipped as a diff or something so I could install stock Bootstrap and pull in the changes. I'm unsure what would happen if I used NPM to install stock Bootstrap, then included the modified stylesheet after. If I could see, I'd just try it myself and see what happened. Thanks for reminding me of these themes!
  - michaelbuckbee 10y ago
    Two thoughts: 1. It should "just work" to load via NPM and then later include the bootswatch theme afterwards. 2. If you use the LESS/SASS file compilation it will work as well, the Bootswatch variables will just replace the base Bootstrap ones.
imh 10y ago
You know, I have no idea how to make stuff more accessible. If you don't mind, could you tell us about how you browse the web, so others like me can make our content more universally accessible? Any recommended resources for that kind of design?
- shitloadofbooks 10y ago
  There's heaps of resources out there, but honestly, just download something like NVDA (it's an open source Screen Reader) and try it for yourself, first hand.
  - devdoomari 10y ago
    are there any 'touchable' monitor that renders pixel-as-depth yet?
- bluetwo 10y ago
  Since any software or training materials sold to the us government must be accessible-compatible, you can search for Section 508 information as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_Amendment_to_the_Rehabilitation_Act_of_1973 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_Amendment_to_the_R... The basic stuff, like adding alt tags to images that have meaning and "skipnav", so readers can choose to skip directly to the content of a page without re-reading the navigation, are actually pretty straight forward to implement. After you retrofit a site once, you'll find these things don't add much time as you incorporate them into the process the next time.
- vacri 10y ago
  Be a web dev for a UK company - I believe they're required by law to have certain minimum accessibility standards :) But really, the magic word you're looking for is "accessibility" (or "a11y" (eleven, not LL)) - spend an afternoon with that word and your favourite web search site.
- dqv 10y ago
  >You know, I have no idea how to make stuff more accessible. It's actually more about not disabling the accessibility features which so many web designers do. They're all built in and meant to work almost seamlessly alongside your design process, but people disable them because they are so self-centered they can't conceive of how someone with a disability might feel using their website. Accessibility has been built in to the web for a very long time. The design process is "If I were blind, would I still be able to use this website? If I had mobility issues, would I be able to use this website?" Then you address those uses cases. - What happens if I can't see this image? - What happens when I disable focus hints and keyboard shortcuts? - What happens if someone needs larger or smaller text on the page? It's not a "kind of" design. It's just being considerate to other people's situations.
cryptozeus 10y ago
This is really interesting...we are furiously refectoring our site to make it more accessible....u r comment could not have come at a better time for me.
joncalhoun 10y ago
It would be awesome to see a service that just offered user testing with feedback like you just gave. I have no idea how big that market is, but I suspect a lot of developers are like myself - not opposed to making a site more accessible but clueless about where to start. I'm thinking user groups like colorblind users and blind users. I'm sure I am missing more groups, so sorry for my ignorance upfront.
- ghswa 10y ago
  These are the first groups that came to mind. They may not all seem applicable all of the time but I would argue that making your site accessible to as many of these people as possible would improve the experience of all of your users. - Partially sighted users that are not technically literate enough to use assistive technologies. - People with physical impairments that affect their ability to use input devices and may also dictate the types of device they can use. - People with low levels of technical literacy. - People with poor literacy in the language of the site. - People with dyslexia, not forgetting those with poor working memory or slow processing speed. - People with dementia. - People with a host of other mental and cognitive disorders.
- namdnay 10y ago
  There are many companies/organisations who can do accessibility auditing. Business is brisk at the moment due to recent regulations in the US (mainly US DoT). I've been through various audits with System Concepts in the UK, Annanpura in Finland, and opendoorsnfp in the USA.
StavrosK 10y ago
You think it's because you're blind? I'm sighted and I have the same problem! I can't design anything worth a damn...
dqv 10y ago
>designing a nice-looking website is such a huge momentum-killer I agree. The simplest designs are the most visually appealing ones. I can honestly say that using a website that has better accessibility is nicer than one that is "pretty". Is there a way for you to print out your designs on a 3D medium so you can feel them? The spacing is way more important to the appeal than color. >I don't even know where to begin with that There are color swatches you can use and the correct colorization can be determined mathematically. Check out some of Google's guideliness at https://material.google.com/style/color.html#color-color-palette https://material.google.com/style/color.html#color-color-pal... I skipped past a big swatch list because I think it could be annoying in a screen reader. I implore you to keep designing websites. The fact is that designers focus way too much on the benign aspects of design and not enough on the ease of use and the mathematics that make them look good. If you focus on those aspects, you can make a great design.
- douche 10y ago
  We are, after all, reading and commenting on a site that renders almost identically in Lynx and Firefox.
- bkgunby 10y ago
  I would personally stay away from most of the colors in material design. They're very bright and distracts the user from the actual content. My eyes still have to adjust whenever I see the conspicuous red navbar in the new gmail app. But do take a close look at the text and background section. It's extremely useful for almost anything you design.
  - naasking 10y ago
    > They're very bright and distracts the user from the actual content. Totally! Your comment gelled a few things that always bothered me about material design. It's like they toss many of the colour conventions we've spent a lifetime building. But if you stick to more neutral colours, the design guidelines are probably fine.
pul 10y ago
Going a bit off topic here: would a chrome/firefox extension that adds alt tags to images using AI be useful for you? There are quite some api's that guess tags and descriptions for images. This doesn't look very complicated and might make inaccessible websites a bit more usable for you.
vincent91 10y ago
Well, I would think even with Launchaco, designing websites is hard if you are completely blind because this tool does not take away the task of choosing colors. Also, I have tried downloading the site and it does not look the same as the preview. Have you considered collaborating with a sighted person who is making the website for your project?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
c0ndu17 10y ago
Hey person of the world, I truly appreciate this comment. Please keep on keeping on, so many kudos to you. As a developer, I oath to pay more attention to my development practices in the future. I feel bad, but honestly, I'd never considered the ramifications of an alt tag in the context you mention. I'm sure there are so many ways I could make the any website I develop more user friendly, but they are just things some people, including myself, take for granted. Please create a github.io page listing in what ways webpages/apps can be improved. It's not about market growth, for me, it's about exclusion... and that be bullshit. Hit me up with a link if you do. I for one, would be indebted.

cameronrohani 10y ago

Thank you for this enlightening comment, and apologies that our website isn't more accessible. We'll be looking in to this through out the day and will try to add some better html to accommodate for anyone who may be in a similar boat to you. I'm really sorry we didn't think about this stuff up front, and will do my best to from here on out.

ndarilek 10y ago
No worries, I get that we're probably not a demographic you've considered, and like I said, I don't even know if in the end this tool will work for me. To give you an idea of what I'm thinking of, I've looked into https://github.com/dennybritz/neal-react https://github.com/dennybritz/neal-react (unfortunately the hosted demo appears to no longer be up.) I'm sure this will bring out the "JavaScript shouldn't be abused like this!" haters, and I'm not the biggest React fan, but I like that I can position a few high-level components without having to think "I need 2 divs, one that's a panel, one that's X width and another 12-X, etc." Granted, I've never built anything with this React library and don't even know if it looks good, but it's closest to what I want in a page design system. Just give me a few high-level blocks that are responsive and look good, and I'll go from there.
- cameronrohani 10y ago
  I recently read a really great book about issues similar to this called "politics of design". Making things more accessible to everyone honestly really excites me. I hope that every time I ever make something I get called out on all of it's accessibility flaws. So thank you for bringing it to light :)
- rhizome 10y ago
  It's a common sentiment on HN that degradability and accessiblity are time and money wasters that have no real value since screenreaders can handle JavaScript now.
  - mrexroad 10y ago
    Examples?
- astronautjones 10y ago
  This probably sounds idiotic, but I am so wildly inspired by how much more coherent your presence, even here on HN is, as opposed to people who can see. Big up and I hope you have all the success you seek
odbol_ 10y ago
Please run your site though an accessibility validator like ACA. At the very least make sure all images have an alt attribute! I feel like so many devs ignore accessibility even though it's not really that hard.
- steedsofwar 10y ago
  It really tends to me an afterthought. A lot of places that i've worked for, accessibility is never factored with estimates. If it does make it, it's a rushed job, or it never makes it and after few complaints, it's added as needed.
steedsofwar 10y ago
I am a software developer/engineer/<whatever the new fad is>, and i am the only "computer guy" in the family. So i've been tasked to create a website for a bakery startup. I couldn't agree more with the previous comment, about creating a website as being a momentum killer! So when i saw this, my initial thoughts were, hmmm another one of 'those' sites. However i'm pleasanlty surprised, sure the elements aren't perfect, and the colours could be more varied, but it's an almost complete site. Replace the graphics, the fonts and text, i'm good to go! I just need to focus on the content and not the boiler plate crap. Thank you!

blauditore 10y ago

I'm not sure, are you now looking for something that does more or less than Bootstrap? While Bootstrap isn't a silver bullet in general, it's surely great if you don't want to write CSS, or only where necessary. And you can always build on top of that. And needless to say, tastes vary wildly: I once started a side project with someone who was virtually my taste counterpart - he liked everything I found ugly and vice versa. So maybe you should get a second opinion on your designs... :P

michaelbuckbee 10y ago

Have you considered Bootswatch? https://bootswatch.com/ https://bootswatch.com/ It's a light set of styles that are applied over top of standard Bootstrap. If you buy a full "Theme" from Envato or where ever, even it's "Bootstrap Based" it is generally so stuffed full of random js libs and heavily customized that it's hard to work with.

ndarilek 10y ago
I have, and it's nice, but I like installing Bootstrap via NPM/some other package manager so I can track new versions and include its JS components, and I wish these shipped as a diff or something so I could install stock Bootstrap and pull in the changes. I'm unsure what would happen if I used NPM to install stock Bootstrap, then included the modified stylesheet after. If I could see, I'd just try it myself and see what happened. Thanks for reminding me of these themes!
- michaelbuckbee 10y ago
  Two thoughts: 1. It should "just work" to load via NPM and then later include the bootswatch theme afterwards. 2. If you use the LESS/SASS file compilation it will work as well, the Bootswatch variables will just replace the base Bootstrap ones.

imh 10y ago

You know, I have no idea how to make stuff more accessible. If you don't mind, could you tell us about how you browse the web, so others like me can make our content more universally accessible? Any recommended resources for that kind of design?

shitloadofbooks 10y ago
There's heaps of resources out there, but honestly, just download something like NVDA (it's an open source Screen Reader) and try it for yourself, first hand.
- devdoomari 10y ago
  are there any 'touchable' monitor that renders pixel-as-depth yet?
bluetwo 10y ago
Since any software or training materials sold to the us government must be accessible-compatible, you can search for Section 508 information as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_Amendment_to_the_Rehabilitation_Act_of_1973 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_Amendment_to_the_R... The basic stuff, like adding alt tags to images that have meaning and "skipnav", so readers can choose to skip directly to the content of a page without re-reading the navigation, are actually pretty straight forward to implement. After you retrofit a site once, you'll find these things don't add much time as you incorporate them into the process the next time.
vacri 10y ago
Be a web dev for a UK company - I believe they're required by law to have certain minimum accessibility standards :) But really, the magic word you're looking for is "accessibility" (or "a11y" (eleven, not LL)) - spend an afternoon with that word and your favourite web search site.
dqv 10y ago
>You know, I have no idea how to make stuff more accessible. It's actually more about not disabling the accessibility features which so many web designers do. They're all built in and meant to work almost seamlessly alongside your design process, but people disable them because they are so self-centered they can't conceive of how someone with a disability might feel using their website. Accessibility has been built in to the web for a very long time. The design process is "If I were blind, would I still be able to use this website? If I had mobility issues, would I be able to use this website?" Then you address those uses cases. - What happens if I can't see this image? - What happens when I disable focus hints and keyboard shortcuts? - What happens if someone needs larger or smaller text on the page? It's not a "kind of" design. It's just being considerate to other people's situations.

cryptozeus 10y ago

This is really interesting...we are furiously refectoring our site to make it more accessible....u r comment could not have come at a better time for me.

joncalhoun 10y ago

It would be awesome to see a service that just offered user testing with feedback like you just gave. I have no idea how big that market is, but I suspect a lot of developers are like myself - not opposed to making a site more accessible but clueless about where to start. I'm thinking user groups like colorblind users and blind users. I'm sure I am missing more groups, so sorry for my ignorance upfront.

ghswa 10y ago
These are the first groups that came to mind. They may not all seem applicable all of the time but I would argue that making your site accessible to as many of these people as possible would improve the experience of all of your users. - Partially sighted users that are not technically literate enough to use assistive technologies. - People with physical impairments that affect their ability to use input devices and may also dictate the types of device they can use. - People with low levels of technical literacy. - People with poor literacy in the language of the site. - People with dyslexia, not forgetting those with poor working memory or slow processing speed. - People with dementia. - People with a host of other mental and cognitive disorders.
namdnay 10y ago
There are many companies/organisations who can do accessibility auditing. Business is brisk at the moment due to recent regulations in the US (mainly US DoT). I've been through various audits with System Concepts in the UK, Annanpura in Finland, and opendoorsnfp in the USA.

StavrosK 10y ago

You think it's because you're blind? I'm sighted and I have the same problem! I can't design anything worth a damn...

dqv 10y ago

>designing a nice-looking website is such a huge momentum-killer I agree. The simplest designs are the most visually appealing ones. I can honestly say that using a website that has better accessibility is nicer than one that is "pretty". Is there a way for you to print out your designs on a 3D medium so you can feel them? The spacing is way more important to the appeal than color. >I don't even know where to begin with that There are color swatches you can use and the correct colorization can be determined mathematically. Check out some of Google's guideliness at https://material.google.com/style/color.html#color-color-palette https://material.google.com/style/color.html#color-color-pal... I skipped past a big swatch list because I think it could be annoying in a screen reader. I implore you to keep designing websites. The fact is that designers focus way too much on the benign aspects of design and not enough on the ease of use and the mathematics that make them look good. If you focus on those aspects, you can make a great design.

douche 10y ago
We are, after all, reading and commenting on a site that renders almost identically in Lynx and Firefox.
bkgunby 10y ago
I would personally stay away from most of the colors in material design. They're very bright and distracts the user from the actual content. My eyes still have to adjust whenever I see the conspicuous red navbar in the new gmail app. But do take a close look at the text and background section. It's extremely useful for almost anything you design.
- naasking 10y ago
  > They're very bright and distracts the user from the actual content. Totally! Your comment gelled a few things that always bothered me about material design. It's like they toss many of the colour conventions we've spent a lifetime building. But if you stick to more neutral colours, the design guidelines are probably fine.

pul 10y ago

Going a bit off topic here: would a chrome/firefox extension that adds alt tags to images using AI be useful for you? There are quite some api's that guess tags and descriptions for images. This doesn't look very complicated and might make inaccessible websites a bit more usable for you.

vincent91 10y ago

Well, I would think even with Launchaco, designing websites is hard if you are completely blind because this tool does not take away the task of choosing colors. Also, I have tried downloading the site and it does not look the same as the preview. Have you considered collaborating with a sighted person who is making the website for your project?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

c0ndu17 10y ago

Hey person of the world, I truly appreciate this comment. Please keep on keeping on, so many kudos to you. As a developer, I oath to pay more attention to my development practices in the future. I feel bad, but honestly, I'd never considered the ramifications of an alt tag in the context you mention. I'm sure there are so many ways I could make the any website I develop more user friendly, but they are just things some people, including myself, take for granted. Please create a github.io page listing in what ways webpages/apps can be improved. It's not about market growth, for me, it's about exclusion... and that be bullshit. Hit me up with a link if you do. I for one, would be indebted.