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So let's say some random person, Bob, builds an awesome website in his free time. Bob spends hundreds of hours just so others can use his awesome idea. Now you'

So let's say some random person, Bob, builds an awesome website in his free time. Bob spends hundreds of hours just so others can use his awesome idea. Now you're telling him what to do. That's not morality, that's just entitlement. Even if Bob was to put some ads on his webpage, because he wasn't so selfless after all, then what? > It’s not on people with disabilities to tell you how you screwed up If you have a problem, you complain. If you don't complain, then you'll have to wait until someone else does or just live with it. That goes for everybody; it's how life works. > If you build for the web, you have a moral obligation to make sure it works right for everyone. No. No I don't. It wasn't my moral obligation to build that website to begin with. It wasn't my moral obligation to make it available to anyone in the first place. It's not my obligation to translate the web page to make it available to people who don't speak my language. And it isn't my obligation to make it available or accessible to any other group of people.

tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
It's one thing to discuss how to best support people with disabilities. It's another thing to sit on your own high horse, and preach from on high about how other developers should do "their fucking job". I'm so sick of this gluttonous moral posturing.
jbob2000 8y ago
It goes deeper than that. At my enterprise company, our accessibility department explicitly does not gather any data on our users with accessibility needs. We don't know who they are, what problems they are facing, or if our solutions work for them or not. The reason? It would infringe on their "rights" (What rights are these? I didn't press further). What they do is hire a few people with visible disabilities (wheelchair or missing limbs) and then parade them around to development teams to shame us into accessibility "compliance". It is a gross process involving lots of trial-and-error.
- extra88 8y ago
  Privacy rights, including personal medical information. Additionally, counting how many people are affected by a particular accessibility barrier too often leads to ignoring them because the numbers tend to be small. > gross process involving lots of trial-and-error. That can be reduced through developer education and changes in processes but doesn't that also describe browser and device testing; it's part of the job.
- anoncake 8y ago
  How do you even make a website that is not accessible for wheelchair users?
  - DanBC 8y ago
    One example: You have fucking tiny up and down vote buttons that aren't separated by anything and you make that vote unchangeable. This means people with motor control disabilities -- some of whom will be wheelchair users -- can't reliably vote using the website supplied buttons. Simple changes are to make the buttons bigger, and to separate them with something other than whitespace, and to allow some changing of the vote.
SCdF 8y ago
It's an interesting discussion. Governments often require buildings and businesses to have certain accommodations for certain types of people. Are websites different to buildings of businesses? Mr Bob Hypothetical makes his new burger joint, and spend hundreds of hours working making it so people can eat his awesome burgers. Should there be any building or health codes he should have to follow? I realise the barrier of entry to a website is lower than a physical business. Presumably though at somewhere between ismyideafunnyyet.xyz and amazon.com/co.uk/ca/multi-national doom machine we have to start treating them with the same or similar expectations to the local chippy.
- erentz 8y ago
  And at least in the US, that’s how things were. Legislation changed that and forced the issue. Maybe we need an ADA update for the web? (There was a good movie on the movement the created the ADA called Music Within for anyone wanting something to watch on the subject.)
  - extra88 8y ago
    No we don't, law updates, regulation updates, and case law has made it clear that the principles of the ADA apply to websites as "places of public accommodation."
    - erentz 8y ago
      Do you know if and how those updates translate to codes that need to be complied with? For example we have codes for ramps that specify the maximum grade, length, minimum platform size, etc. I’m wondering if something analogous needs to exist for the web. (Actual regulatory codes, not W3 standards or guidelines.) it would be “fairly” easy for something like USDS to define something like that for use for all Govt sites, and that could be enforced across agencies. Seems tricky for how you’d handle that with non Govt sites.
      - extra88 8y ago
        Section 508, which applies to government sites (and I think their contractors) used to have its own standards but is now aligned with WCAG 2.0 AA. Most countries have done the same. You're never going to have standards for software as clear-cut as architectural standards for ramps and such, the factors for software are too complex. There are only a few digital accessibility standards that are very specific, like color contrast between foreground and background at particular font sizes. There is a need for more specifics from the government in specific areas. For instance WCAG 2.0 AA says videos have to have captions but do you have to wait before making a video available until the captions are ready? If you have thousands of hours of uncaptioned video, would it be sufficient to produce captions by request with a reasonable turnaround time? TV broadcasters and DVD publishers have already had rules to follow but as video has become commonplace, regulations haven't kept up.
francisofascii 8y ago
Maybe morality in general is not a benchmark but rather an endless continuum. Let's say Alice builds a similar website to Bob, but took extra time to add accessibility. You could argue Alice's site is morally superior to Bob's without saying Bob is immoral.
onion2k 8y ago
Hackernews readers put a huge amount of stock in building websites without JS, that work in lots of browsers, that deliver tiny bundles or no bundle at all, with old tech rather than new, and that "just work", because those are the things that impact the readers themselves. As soon as someone suggests building a site that works as well for other people the comments fill up with reasons not to. This strikes me as selfish.
aklemm 8y ago
You might as well tell them, "Tough shit." Different markets and different languages, etc. don't deserve automatic accommodation, but if you fully believe in accommodating disabled people in order to give them the dignity and humanity they deserve, then you'd take on the moral imperative to make an effort at accessibility. Maybe it shouldn't be a legal requirement for private-market web documents, but dismissing it altogether is not a morally defensible position. Would the ADA have ever been passed under the principles you're espousing?

tenaciousDaniel 8y ago

It's one thing to discuss how to best support people with disabilities. It's another thing to sit on your own high horse, and preach from on high about how other developers should do "their fucking job". I'm so sick of this gluttonous moral posturing.

jbob2000 8y ago

It goes deeper than that. At my enterprise company, our accessibility department explicitly does not gather any data on our users with accessibility needs. We don't know who they are, what problems they are facing, or if our solutions work for them or not. The reason? It would infringe on their "rights" (What rights are these? I didn't press further). What they do is hire a few people with visible disabilities (wheelchair or missing limbs) and then parade them around to development teams to shame us into accessibility "compliance". It is a gross process involving lots of trial-and-error.

extra88 8y ago
Privacy rights, including personal medical information. Additionally, counting how many people are affected by a particular accessibility barrier too often leads to ignoring them because the numbers tend to be small. > gross process involving lots of trial-and-error. That can be reduced through developer education and changes in processes but doesn't that also describe browser and device testing; it's part of the job.
anoncake 8y ago
How do you even make a website that is not accessible for wheelchair users?
- DanBC 8y ago
  One example: You have fucking tiny up and down vote buttons that aren't separated by anything and you make that vote unchangeable. This means people with motor control disabilities -- some of whom will be wheelchair users -- can't reliably vote using the website supplied buttons. Simple changes are to make the buttons bigger, and to separate them with something other than whitespace, and to allow some changing of the vote.

SCdF 8y ago

It's an interesting discussion. Governments often require buildings and businesses to have certain accommodations for certain types of people. Are websites different to buildings of businesses? Mr Bob Hypothetical makes his new burger joint, and spend hundreds of hours working making it so people can eat his awesome burgers. Should there be any building or health codes he should have to follow? I realise the barrier of entry to a website is lower than a physical business. Presumably though at somewhere between ismyideafunnyyet.xyz and amazon.com/co.uk/ca/multi-national doom machine we have to start treating them with the same or similar expectations to the local chippy.

erentz 8y ago
And at least in the US, that’s how things were. Legislation changed that and forced the issue. Maybe we need an ADA update for the web? (There was a good movie on the movement the created the ADA called Music Within for anyone wanting something to watch on the subject.)
- extra88 8y ago
  No we don't, law updates, regulation updates, and case law has made it clear that the principles of the ADA apply to websites as "places of public accommodation."
  - erentz 8y ago
    Do you know if and how those updates translate to codes that need to be complied with? For example we have codes for ramps that specify the maximum grade, length, minimum platform size, etc. I’m wondering if something analogous needs to exist for the web. (Actual regulatory codes, not W3 standards or guidelines.) it would be “fairly” easy for something like USDS to define something like that for use for all Govt sites, and that could be enforced across agencies. Seems tricky for how you’d handle that with non Govt sites.
    - extra88 8y ago
      Section 508, which applies to government sites (and I think their contractors) used to have its own standards but is now aligned with WCAG 2.0 AA. Most countries have done the same. You're never going to have standards for software as clear-cut as architectural standards for ramps and such, the factors for software are too complex. There are only a few digital accessibility standards that are very specific, like color contrast between foreground and background at particular font sizes. There is a need for more specifics from the government in specific areas. For instance WCAG 2.0 AA says videos have to have captions but do you have to wait before making a video available until the captions are ready? If you have thousands of hours of uncaptioned video, would it be sufficient to produce captions by request with a reasonable turnaround time? TV broadcasters and DVD publishers have already had rules to follow but as video has become commonplace, regulations haven't kept up.

francisofascii 8y ago

Maybe morality in general is not a benchmark but rather an endless continuum. Let's say Alice builds a similar website to Bob, but took extra time to add accessibility. You could argue Alice's site is morally superior to Bob's without saying Bob is immoral.

onion2k 8y ago

Hackernews readers put a huge amount of stock in building websites without JS, that work in lots of browsers, that deliver tiny bundles or no bundle at all, with old tech rather than new, and that "just work", because those are the things that impact the readers themselves. As soon as someone suggests building a site that works as well for other people the comments fill up with reasons not to. This strikes me as selfish.

aklemm 8y ago

You might as well tell them, "Tough shit." Different markets and different languages, etc. don't deserve automatic accommodation, but if you fully believe in accommodating disabled people in order to give them the dignity and humanity they deserve, then you'd take on the moral imperative to make an effort at accessibility. Maybe it shouldn't be a legal requirement for private-market web documents, but dismissing it altogether is not a morally defensible position. Would the ADA have ever been passed under the principles you're espousing?