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In 2010 Google determined that there were more people using the internet with accessibility features than Canadians. I can't find any new data, but I find it ha

by snek 7y ago

In 2010 Google determined that there were more people using the internet with accessibility features than Canadians. I can't find any new data, but I find it hard to assume that has gone down since. On top of that, making your website friendly to navigate with a keyboard doesn't just help people using accessibility features, lots of people use the keyboard to quickly navigate.

NotAnEconomist 7y ago
Canada only accounts for 0.5% of the world population and about 1% of internet users (total Canadian population / total internet users) -- and I think it's telling that you didn't mention a bigger country, like the US which accounts for under 5% and under 10% respectively. Your point doesn't refute the GP: if we're spending a lot of expense to support fractional or even single-digit percentages of the population, it doesn't necessarily make sense.
esyir 7y ago
We have ~4.77 billion people on the internet. Assuming all of Canada was blind, that's 0.77% of total users. Under most circumstances, < 1% is a small minority. I get that some level of accessibility is reasonable, but if you're expecting the same level of UI investment there for <1% of the population, I'd call that insane. Here, he can still call in and order the pizza.
- snek 7y ago
  Making a website accessable isn't hard. there's a plethora of tooling available to help and most of it comes down to aria roles and color selection. It really is a bare minimum sort of task imo.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    And then you get sued for $100k over your "bare minimum". This just makes front end dev seem dangerous, because you can never be sure that you meet absolutely all the guidelines without being a lawyer.
    - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
      You don't have to meet absolutely all of the guidelines. Did you make an effort to have an accessible website? Did you accessibility bugs when they are reported as causing problems for users? If so, you will be fine. Domino's didn't. They basically just told blind users to fuck off and call them instead.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  TBH personally I find this comment exceptionally strange given the rigors of acceptable limits among software uptimes and reliability outside of accessibility concerns. Netflix would probably not tolerate an entire country's access being revoked from their service for a technical reason they could fix. If AWS had a 0.77% downtime rate for all of their services, it would be a lot of services and a ton of bad press from businesspeople that are losing money due to AWS being down. If the Bloomberg terminal went down 0.77% of the time, it'd probably be considered completely unacceptable as a service to its userbase. 0.77% is something that would be protested ordinarily, except when it comes to accessibility concerns. Why?
  - esyir 7y ago
    That's an apples to oranges argument here. So first a market argument: AWS downtime results (or the lack thereof) are what's desired by the market. Blind people are a small market, and prioritizing them equally or disproportionately is an inefficient use of resources. This can be countered by "we can't just abandon the disabled". And we haven't; In this case, the disabled guy can call in and order a pizza. The core service is still available to him. However, I don't see why forcing all features for every disability should be mandated. It's a small proportion of the populace, and while steps should be taken to enable usability, I don't believe that their desires warrant as much resources as the mainline, nor do I think we should force design to cater to them. This is particularly so as, from what I get from the ADA, there is no size requirement for such. If you classify websites as "public accommodations", then all websites big or small now have yet another thing that they can be sued for.
    - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
      I think this is kind of an odd proposition to have though, because market sizes aren't always reasonably correct to judge. For example, beauty products previously thought that black women are a small market. In reality, black skintones have unique qualities in shade that aren't appropriately captured. The day a line of PoC oriented foundations were widely available they were so heavily demanded that stores nationwide were constantly sold out for months. We've already learned this via curb cutouts. An argument like yours was proposed (eg. we don't need cutouts in curbs for wheelchairs, so few people have wheelchairs) but it turns out that everyone benefits from the thing installed (child strollers, luggage pulling, movers, anything on wheels suddenly benefited). The position here is that this is similar. Having something that is readable to the blind could suddenly benefit a wide, diverse range of people- colorblind folk, people who just underwent eye surgery, cataract sufferers, even photosensitive or light-induced migraine sufferers suddenly benefit! You could even argue that it would help reduce blue light exposure at night if you could browse without turning on your screen and suddenly theres an opportunity for literally everyone using a screen to benefit from ADA compliant websites for the blind.

by snek 7y ago

NotAnEconomist 7y ago

Canada only accounts for 0.5% of the world population and about 1% of internet users (total Canadian population / total internet users) -- and I think it's telling that you didn't mention a bigger country, like the US which accounts for under 5% and under 10% respectively. Your point doesn't refute the GP: if we're spending a lot of expense to support fractional or even single-digit percentages of the population, it doesn't necessarily make sense.

esyir 7y ago

We have ~4.77 billion people on the internet. Assuming all of Canada was blind, that's 0.77% of total users. Under most circumstances, < 1% is a small minority. I get that some level of accessibility is reasonable, but if you're expecting the same level of UI investment there for <1% of the population, I'd call that insane. Here, he can still call in and order the pizza.

snek 7y ago
Making a website accessable isn't hard. there's a plethora of tooling available to help and most of it comes down to aria roles and color selection. It really is a bare minimum sort of task imo.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  And then you get sued for $100k over your "bare minimum". This just makes front end dev seem dangerous, because you can never be sure that you meet absolutely all the guidelines without being a lawyer.
  - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
    You don't have to meet absolutely all of the guidelines. Did you make an effort to have an accessible website? Did you accessibility bugs when they are reported as causing problems for users? If so, you will be fine. Domino's didn't. They basically just told blind users to fuck off and call them instead.
SolaceQuantum 7y ago
TBH personally I find this comment exceptionally strange given the rigors of acceptable limits among software uptimes and reliability outside of accessibility concerns. Netflix would probably not tolerate an entire country's access being revoked from their service for a technical reason they could fix. If AWS had a 0.77% downtime rate for all of their services, it would be a lot of services and a ton of bad press from businesspeople that are losing money due to AWS being down. If the Bloomberg terminal went down 0.77% of the time, it'd probably be considered completely unacceptable as a service to its userbase. 0.77% is something that would be protested ordinarily, except when it comes to accessibility concerns. Why?
- esyir 7y ago
  That's an apples to oranges argument here. So first a market argument: AWS downtime results (or the lack thereof) are what's desired by the market. Blind people are a small market, and prioritizing them equally or disproportionately is an inefficient use of resources. This can be countered by "we can't just abandon the disabled". And we haven't; In this case, the disabled guy can call in and order a pizza. The core service is still available to him. However, I don't see why forcing all features for every disability should be mandated. It's a small proportion of the populace, and while steps should be taken to enable usability, I don't believe that their desires warrant as much resources as the mainline, nor do I think we should force design to cater to them. This is particularly so as, from what I get from the ADA, there is no size requirement for such. If you classify websites as "public accommodations", then all websites big or small now have yet another thing that they can be sued for.
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    I think this is kind of an odd proposition to have though, because market sizes aren't always reasonably correct to judge. For example, beauty products previously thought that black women are a small market. In reality, black skintones have unique qualities in shade that aren't appropriately captured. The day a line of PoC oriented foundations were widely available they were so heavily demanded that stores nationwide were constantly sold out for months. We've already learned this via curb cutouts. An argument like yours was proposed (eg. we don't need cutouts in curbs for wheelchairs, so few people have wheelchairs) but it turns out that everyone benefits from the thing installed (child strollers, luggage pulling, movers, anything on wheels suddenly benefited). The position here is that this is similar. Having something that is readable to the blind could suddenly benefit a wide, diverse range of people- colorblind folk, people who just underwent eye surgery, cataract sufferers, even photosensitive or light-induced migraine sufferers suddenly benefit! You could even argue that it would help reduce blue light exposure at night if you could browse without turning on your screen and suddenly theres an opportunity for literally everyone using a screen to benefit from ADA compliant websites for the blind.