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> "Use blind accessibility tools with your website. If you're on iOS/macOS enable VoiceOver, figure out how it works, close your eyes and use your website." I

by warent 8y ago

> "Use blind accessibility tools with your website. If you're on iOS/macOS enable VoiceOver, figure out how it works, close your eyes and use your website." I doubt this is going to be very effective. Sure, it's better than nothing at all, but this is akin to sighted person with zero blindness experience testing the effectiveness of a newly designed white cane, only a website is much more complicated. You should always find someone with personal experience to test it themselves and provide feedback if you want a clear understanding of how it will actually work for that community.

uberswe 8y ago
Even if someone with personal experience is better I would still highly recommend testing these tools as it's not always clear how they work if you haven never used them. I was really surprised the first time I tested one of these tools and now I know a few dos and don'ts when developing web apps.
jitl 8y ago
>> Use blind accessibility tools with your website. If you're on iOS/macOS enable VoiceOver, figure out how it works, close your eyes and use your website. > I doubt this is going to be very effective. You are wrong. The only way for a primarily sighted team to build accessible software is to test and iterate on accessibility as part of day-in, day-out development practices. Think of it the same as localization for RTL languages or cross-browser testing: you should test in each environment you support before merging a change. Training and user-testing with blind community are important, but it doesn’t take a native Arabic speaker to notice broken layout in Arabic, nor does it take an Android device owner to notice usability problems in Android Chrome. The best front-end engineers I know all have a VoiceOver hotkey on their dev machines and phones, and I regularly see them testing sites they visit for keyboard navigation, focus management, and VoiceOver usability.
bryanrasmussen 8y ago
I agree that you should find someone who is blind to test your site for problems that a blind person will encounter, however I think you are wrong about a website being more complicated than a white cane - or rather it is not a white cane one tests, it is the accessibility of the world around you with that cane, and the world around you is more complicated to understand with a white cane than a website with voiceover turned on. With voiceover it will very quickly let you know if you have something important for the user to get to that either takes too long to get to, or is not accessible at all. Voiceover is a useful tool at the development stage, after you have your near MVP then please get someone with personal experience to give it a full test.
pure-awesome 8y ago
The metaphor is slightly off-the-mark. Testing a fancy new white cane would be like testing the accessibility tool itself. If you are developing that, then you definitely need an expert in such tools (probably a blind person). However, developing the site is more akin to developing... a hallway? You can test whether blind people can navigate your hallway by closing your eyes and walking down it whilst using a cane. This is a bit easier- you just need to make sure there aren't obvious pitfalls and dangerous obstacles, maybe that there's braille on the doors etc. Having an actual blind person helping you out in the second case is obviously preferable, but if you cannot, I think most blind people would appreciate you putting in the effort and at least trying to make it accessible, as opposed to the alternative of not caring at all. A lot of accessibility is standardized and there are guides to follow. It can sometimes be tricky, to be sure, but it's doable.

by warent 8y ago

uberswe 8y ago

Even if someone with personal experience is better I would still highly recommend testing these tools as it's not always clear how they work if you haven never used them. I was really surprised the first time I tested one of these tools and now I know a few dos and don'ts when developing web apps.

jitl 8y ago

>> Use blind accessibility tools with your website. If you're on iOS/macOS enable VoiceOver, figure out how it works, close your eyes and use your website. > I doubt this is going to be very effective. You are wrong. The only way for a primarily sighted team to build accessible software is to test and iterate on accessibility as part of day-in, day-out development practices. Think of it the same as localization for RTL languages or cross-browser testing: you should test in each environment you support before merging a change. Training and user-testing with blind community are important, but it doesn’t take a native Arabic speaker to notice broken layout in Arabic, nor does it take an Android device owner to notice usability problems in Android Chrome. The best front-end engineers I know all have a VoiceOver hotkey on their dev machines and phones, and I regularly see them testing sites they visit for keyboard navigation, focus management, and VoiceOver usability.

bryanrasmussen 8y ago

I agree that you should find someone who is blind to test your site for problems that a blind person will encounter, however I think you are wrong about a website being more complicated than a white cane - or rather it is not a white cane one tests, it is the accessibility of the world around you with that cane, and the world around you is more complicated to understand with a white cane than a website with voiceover turned on. With voiceover it will very quickly let you know if you have something important for the user to get to that either takes too long to get to, or is not accessible at all. Voiceover is a useful tool at the development stage, after you have your near MVP then please get someone with personal experience to give it a full test.

pure-awesome 8y ago

The metaphor is slightly off-the-mark. Testing a fancy new white cane would be like testing the accessibility tool itself. If you are developing that, then you definitely need an expert in such tools (probably a blind person). However, developing the site is more akin to developing... a hallway? You can test whether blind people can navigate your hallway by closing your eyes and walking down it whilst using a cane. This is a bit easier- you just need to make sure there aren't obvious pitfalls and dangerous obstacles, maybe that there's braille on the doors etc. Having an actual blind person helping you out in the second case is obviously preferable, but if you cannot, I think most blind people would appreciate you putting in the effort and at least trying to make it accessible, as opposed to the alternative of not caring at all. A lot of accessibility is standardized and there are guides to follow. It can sometimes be tricky, to be sure, but it's doable.