4 ms·

Somehow the author assumes that the native gui has better accessibility features. In a world of bloated frameworks and browser as a gui type apps not every app

Somehow the author assumes that the native gui has better accessibility features. In a world of bloated frameworks and browser as a gui type apps not every app is accessible. Most of the time it isn't even on their radar because of the tiny user base. One of those things that is just plain wrong when you spectate but when it is your job to do you find it a pain to implement.

MBCook 9y ago
Microsoft and Apple put a lot of time/effort into making sure their libraries provide the necessary support so people can write accessible software. Individual programs may be bad, but the toolkits support it. Here, none of the cross platform toolkits seem to even have the most basic support.
- yoz-y 9y ago
  Sadly accessibility development has many roadblock on its path: - For-profit organizations have little incentives to develop accessible software or they have to make it prohibitively expensive - Open Source development is usually "itch my scratch"-driven (as the author points out) and the pool of people who are both motivated by their own plight and able to develop solutions for them are very few. I think this is the main reason why the best accessibility frameworks are made by companies that are already far away from their bottom line and can afford to do the work at their own expense.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    Apple seems to do it because it's in their ethos. Jobs and Cooks have both said it matters to them. They aren't big in enterprise (or even education) so I don't think that argument fits. I think they just care. That may be a bit of my bias but I can't come up with a good business case for them. MS may or may not care, but accessibility is often a requirement for government contracts (or buisnesses who want government contracts) so it's a good sales feature for them, even if something if a checkbox feature. They work very hard at t too. But the end result is that both of them work really hard on accessibility and everyone benefits.
    - LeoNatan25 9y ago
      Apple does it very well: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/david-pogue-on-iphone-voiceover-163733668.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/david-pogue-on-iphone-voiceov...
    - yoz-y 9y ago
      Yes that is what I meant. Apple and MS are for-profit, but they have massive profits from something else and a huge safety net. This is opposed to a company that either makes accessible software specifically, or makes software that would benefit from being accessible (let's say an IDE such as IntelliJ). Apple (from what I have heard MS too) really does amazing work in accessibility but this would not be possible had they not had enough resources. I can understand why understaffed open source projects do not allocate more resources to accessibility.
      - MBCook 9y ago
        My point with MS is that they're not doing it out of the good of their hearts (for argument) and just spending their profits... they are REQUIRED to do it to be able to get many of their biggest contracts. They are doing it so they CAN sell.
- TheAceOfHearts 9y ago
  Writing accessible software is very challenging, and a lot of the documentation that has historically been available was typically sub-par. I usually try advocating in favor of web accessibility, but in many cases developers just don't know any better. I'd definitely count myself among those that still have a lot to learn. I've noticed that the w3c is starting to push hard on improving the status quo, especially during the last few months. The latest WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices draft [0] is superb. It includes examples, documentation on the different keyboard interactions, and suggested aria properties. As the documentation quality increases, it gets easier to raise awareness among developers. My experience has generally been that once you raise the point and you provide a clearly defined solution, many people are happy to make changes. For example, I've occasionally convinced friends with inaccessible video to either publish transcripts or write articles / blogs with the equivalent knowledge. [0] https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/ https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/

MBCook 9y ago

Microsoft and Apple put a lot of time/effort into making sure their libraries provide the necessary support so people can write accessible software. Individual programs may be bad, but the toolkits support it. Here, none of the cross platform toolkits seem to even have the most basic support.

yoz-y 9y ago
Sadly accessibility development has many roadblock on its path: - For-profit organizations have little incentives to develop accessible software or they have to make it prohibitively expensive - Open Source development is usually "itch my scratch"-driven (as the author points out) and the pool of people who are both motivated by their own plight and able to develop solutions for them are very few. I think this is the main reason why the best accessibility frameworks are made by companies that are already far away from their bottom line and can afford to do the work at their own expense.
- MBCook 9y ago
  Apple seems to do it because it's in their ethos. Jobs and Cooks have both said it matters to them. They aren't big in enterprise (or even education) so I don't think that argument fits. I think they just care. That may be a bit of my bias but I can't come up with a good business case for them. MS may or may not care, but accessibility is often a requirement for government contracts (or buisnesses who want government contracts) so it's a good sales feature for them, even if something if a checkbox feature. They work very hard at t too. But the end result is that both of them work really hard on accessibility and everyone benefits.
  - LeoNatan25 9y ago
    Apple does it very well: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/david-pogue-on-iphone-voiceover-163733668.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/david-pogue-on-iphone-voiceov...
  - yoz-y 9y ago
    Yes that is what I meant. Apple and MS are for-profit, but they have massive profits from something else and a huge safety net. This is opposed to a company that either makes accessible software specifically, or makes software that would benefit from being accessible (let's say an IDE such as IntelliJ). Apple (from what I have heard MS too) really does amazing work in accessibility but this would not be possible had they not had enough resources. I can understand why understaffed open source projects do not allocate more resources to accessibility.
    - MBCook 9y ago
      My point with MS is that they're not doing it out of the good of their hearts (for argument) and just spending their profits... they are REQUIRED to do it to be able to get many of their biggest contracts. They are doing it so they CAN sell.
TheAceOfHearts 9y ago
Writing accessible software is very challenging, and a lot of the documentation that has historically been available was typically sub-par. I usually try advocating in favor of web accessibility, but in many cases developers just don't know any better. I'd definitely count myself among those that still have a lot to learn. I've noticed that the w3c is starting to push hard on improving the status quo, especially during the last few months. The latest WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices draft [0] is superb. It includes examples, documentation on the different keyboard interactions, and suggested aria properties. As the documentation quality increases, it gets easier to raise awareness among developers. My experience has generally been that once you raise the point and you provide a clearly defined solution, many people are happy to make changes. For example, I've occasionally convinced friends with inaccessible video to either publish transcripts or write articles / blogs with the equivalent knowledge. [0] https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/ https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/