8 ms·

Tangent. How is it logical to deprive people from access to a booth just because people in a wheelchair can't access it? That's like banning computer screens be

• tudorw 7y ago
  Because when asked nicely to design accessible buildings very little was done, it required legislation that seems counterintuitive at first, however, if you design for all from the outset, then this is a non-issue. The internet needs to learn this too.
  • curiousgal 7y ago
    Yes but if there's an accessible alternative then where's the issue? In this case the offices had conference rooms that were wheelchair-accessible. Sure this means able-bodied people had twice as much access to something but hasn't that always been the case? Like, if you can walk, you can take either the stairs or the ramp to get into a building.
    • paxys 7y ago
      Literally in the next line he says that the conference rooms were always booked and not really an alternative (which is pretty standard in any office)
      • curiousgal 7y ago
        That's a different issue now isn't it? Access is provided but not guaranteed. You don't see cities with bike lanes forcing those lanes to be clear.
        • YawningAngel 7y ago
          I don't think it is a different issue. The object of the exercise is to allow disabled people to participate on an equal footing. A few nominal concessions that aren't sufficient to achieve this does not do that. I don't think blocked cycle lanes are a good point of comparison as they don't fulfil their intended function when blocked.
        • CathedralBorrow 7y ago
          If the accessible alternative isn't really an alternative then I don't think that's a different issue at all.
        • spats1990 7y ago
          >You don't see cities with bike lanes forcing those lanes to be clear. Yes, you do (if I understood what you mean correctly): https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/cdot/supp_info/bicycling_-_parkingordrivingcarsinbikelanes.html https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/cdot/supp_info/bicycli...
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  • reportgunner 7y ago
    There was a short movie about this, it's called 2081.
• onion2k 7y ago
  I'm making a website that gives free kittens and Bitcoins to anyone who has a HN username starting with a letter in the second half of the alphabet. You can't use it, which is a shame, but it would be wrong to deprive half of HN free kittens and Bitcoins, right? I mean, fairness is all well and good, but everyone likes a free kitten. I'm really sorry I can't make a website that everyone can access, but that would cost more so I'm not going to bother.
  • kevinwang 7y ago
    Wait... You can definitely do that.
  • curiousgal 7y ago
    Why would it be a shame? Life has always been unfair. Even if you were to make an accessible version of the website, people with no internet access wouldn't be able to access it so how is that fair? You can't really enforce "fairness" because it's subjective. In this particular case however, the office had wheelchair-accessible rooms so I don't see why the booths had to be accessible as well when they serve the same purpose as the rooms.
    • purple_ducks 7y ago
      For the same reason there's not a whites only restroom. How do you not understand that if your business offers something, it has to be accessible and available to everyone? Otherwise, it's discrimination. > Life has always been unfair. And laws like this ensure the world doesn't become even more unfair.
  • sincerely 7y ago
    I think I can guess the point you're trying to make, but you did a pretty bad job making it. There's literally nothing wrong with your example.
    • onion2k 7y ago
      There's literally nothing wrong with your example. You may believe there's nothing wrong with arbitrary discrimination but I don't.
• herostratus101 7y ago
  Berkeley had a bunch of great online computer science courses that got taken down because some opportunistic ADA lawyer sued them because the free content wasn't "accessible enough" (and the university couldn't justify the enormous expense of making it accessible given that they earned nothing from it).
  • DanBC 7y ago
    You've missed out quite a lot. The ADA was passed in 1990, so it was in place a full 17 years before Berkeley started adding video to the web. The university strongly agreed with disability accessibility law. They put policies in place to make sure content was accessible. They offered free support to professors to make content accessible, and they required professors to sign documents saying "I have made this accessible". People lied by signing these forms when they had not made the material accessible. If they hadn't lied, and had made use of the free support when creating content, the material would have been accessible from the beginning, and the university would not have been dumped into the massively unlawful position they were. This wasn't some "opportunistic ADA lawyer", it was the inevitable result when hundreds of employees lied about accessibility. Pages 3 and 4 https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08-30-UC-Berkeley-LOF.pdf https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08... Here's the list of statements that people said they'd done that they mostly had not done: 1.I have reviewed and implemented edX’s “ Guidelines for Creating Accessible Content.” 2.All PDFs attached to my course follow the University of California Office of the President recommendations. 3.I have reviewed and implemented applicable guidelines into my course from the Web Accessibility team’s resource “Top 10 Tips for Making your Website Accessible.” 4.All mp3 and mp4 files in my course have been submitted for transcripts for SubRip Text (SRT) files. 5.All video and audio in my course have accurate captioning available to users through the edX HTML5 player
    • bko 7y ago
      Why was it inevitable? What's the point of removing content because its not accessible to some small fraction of the population? Is this meant to punish the professors who signed something they likely didn't fully read? It seems that it's punishing individuals who would find this information useful.
• paxys 7y ago
  You don't see a problem with part of the workforce not given equal tools and opportunity to be able to do their job as well as others?
  • curiousgal 7y ago
    Well now no one has those tools, so from a business perspective (even without going into how many people with disabilities are in the workforce) having part of the workforce with more access to a tool is better.
    • paxys 7y ago
      Well the ADA doesn't exist for the benefit of the business - quite the opposite in fact.
    • CathedralBorrow 7y ago
      Well then it's clearly in the best interest of the business to comply with the law as soon as possible.
  • tomp 7y ago
    Yet workplaces are allowed to "discriminate" against unskilled and stupid people...
• untog 7y ago
  Well "logical" just leads us down a weird path here. Is it "logical" to hire disabled employees at all? It's a lot of work to make your office accessible, so the "logical" answer would be to only hire able bodied people. Thankfully the world doesn't actually work that way. We make buildings accessible because it's the right thing to do, and because society has decided that excluding people (who are already greatly disadvantaged) is wrong. Rules like ADA aren't designed to make the most logical sense, they're designed to work. If you don't mandate the shutdown of the inaccessible booths then the company has very little incentive to fix the problem.
  • tomp 7y ago
    > We make buildings accessible because it's the right thing to do, and because society has decided that excluding people (who are already greatly disadvantaged) is wrong. Is it the right solution though? Does it make sense to spend 1% of GDP on something that helps 0.5% of the population (I'm making up numbers here)? Is this really the most cost effective solution? Wouldn't it make more sense to e.g. give disabled people a Basic Income (social support) enabling them to not work, instead of forcing every employer to spend time and money on making the workplace accessible (even though 99% of that effort will be wasted)? It might be cheaper to hire 2 musclemen to carry a disabled person around, rather than renovating each historic building to add ramps and/or elevators... Yeah, I agree that there are non-monetary effects as well (people socialising and/or feeling useful) but there's probably decent solutions for those as well...
    • DoreenMichele 7y ago
      Does it make sense to spend 1% of GDP on something that helps 0.5% of the population (I'm making up numbers here)? Some not made up numbers for you: Roughly 15-20% of people self-identify as handicapped. At least one study suggests that up to 60% of the population has some degree of impairment and would benefit from more accessible design in the world generally. This fits with my observations. Most people who are only mildly impaired actively distance themselves from the label as it is stigmatizing. People only embrace the label of being handicapped or disabled if they need so much accommodation that it is worthwhile to put up with the bullshit that goes along with having a stigmatizing label. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19815635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19815635
• mellosouls 7y ago
  Let's say the place had no toilets, so they build some and you go in and it's just stand up men's urinals. So you politely point out this won't work for you, they're breaking the law and frankly, making you feel very excluded, and they're like: "Meh, women. We'll get around to it. But yeah we'll put some signs up in the meantime. You can use the ones in the building down the street. Thanks for pointing that out..." It's not just about the design competence or legal compliance, it's the principle.
  • michaelt 7y ago
    I think everyone would agree the women's bathroom should be built, yes. What's confusing is why you'd close the men's bathroom until the women's bathroom was built?
    • mellosouls 7y ago
      I purposely didn't put that in - I was trying to convey the righteous outrage that would be felt. The point is you think about this up front. The reason you would require the functioning facility to be closed is to make it clear to the business and all others there are consequences for this incompetence and lack of care.
      • isoskeles 7y ago
        May as well burn down whole building and start over as a consequence for these injustices. Why aren’t you proposing that? Also, the example is absurd because urinals wouldn’t satisfy all restroom needs. Men don’t defecate in the urinal. It’s even in the name.
        • mellosouls 7y ago
          You are perhaps poring too much over the detail. I've no idea how you get to burning the whole building down, my rationale for conveying the importance of respecting standards, legislation and plain human decency was pretty clear I think.
• jkern 7y ago
  This also seemed weird to me. From the tone of the article I was expecting that they never even replaced the phone booths or something like that. But it sounds like they were replaced within a month, which seems fairly prompt considering they weren't essential items