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Here's my breakdown: > Morality is not always relative (house example) Building an unsafe house exposes people to active harm. When you invite someone into a
by morpheuskafka 8y ago
Here's my breakdown:
> Morality is not always relative (house example)
Building an unsafe house exposes people to active harm. When you invite someone into a house you make the implied warranty that the roof will not collapse and kill them do to your negligence.
> You’re a web professional
If you're making a new product for Google or Microsoft, I completely agree with this article. However, developing web apps is not the same as building bridges. If you are a bridge builder, you're a licensed civil engineer with a sizeable government budget. If you build web apps, you might be a 30-year senior dev, or you might be a student trying to launch a startup with a hundred dollars and no employees. Or, you might just be making a personal web page for yourself or family.
> The web is accessible out-of-the-box. We break it.
As with any term, "the web" can have multiple meanings. This statement is true of the original web implementation, "[an] HTML file with no CSS and no JavaScript." That's not the web anyone knows today. Modern definitions of the web might include PWAs,
> It’s not on people with disabilities to tell you how you screwed up
If you're Google and you "forget" to alt-tag images, again I agree by all means. But this is only true if we're talking about common knowledge stuff (which is relative to size and resources of the developer) or things that are deliberately ignored.
> It should be easier
Why is it the job of a side-project, non-profit, startup, or personal developer to conform to obscure, complex standards--why isn't it the job of the for-profit screen reader companies to make decent standards in the first place?
> you have a moral obligation to make sure it works right for everyone.
Building anything is a game of tradeoffs. If you can afford and have the expertise to do so, you absolutely should invest in a11y. Your moral obligation is to not intentionally harm users, not to spend endless amounts of time complying with every standard and best practice.