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I think one problem with that approach is that blindness isn’t binary. Many registered blind people are partially sighted and use screen readers and other assis

I think one problem with that approach is that blindness isn’t binary. Many registered blind people are partially sighted and use screen readers and other assistive tech to supplement low vision. Another concern: as someone working on a large web development team, I think that maintaining a separate “non-visual” site would entrench a two-tier approach to quality and completeness (noticing and fixing issues, adding new features, etc). If you treat them as two separate applications they will inevitably diverge over time, despite best intentions. You might even end up with slightly different URL structures on each site, making it impossible for a blind user to find the corresponding audio version of a certain URL they found on social media, for example.

Angostura 7y ago
It seems to me that if this ruling is enforced and becomes accepted we may see a welcome move towards 'accessibility first' design - which would be an interesting paradigm shift for many devs.
- playpause 7y ago
  I would welcome 'accessibility first' if it means people start thinking about 'semantics' again. 10-15 years ago, the web dev world was obsessed with semantics, separation of style and content, the idea you could just edit CSS to do a complete redesign (like csszengarden.com), and your markup could remain untouched, understandable by all devices present and future. I think this notion still holds some power, but it's obviously taken a hit with the component paradigm. The modern approach of 'sprinkle-on' accessibility doesn't work as well, and just feels like a messy extra step you have to do when building a feature. It was much better when people cared about baking it in from the ground up, through considered semantics and document outlines.
  - mwcampbell 7y ago
    > it's obviously taken a hit with the component paradigm Can you please explain how the component paradigm is at odds with semantic markup? Is it just that developers are now satisfied with the semantics being in their component names and props, and don't care if it actually gets rendered as undifferentiated divs? My own hypothesis is that React gave developers permission to question some things that were previously deemed sacred in web development, and developers went too far with that. Using a component framework like React or Vue is not inherently at odds with producing good semantic markup.
    - playpause 7y ago
      > Is it just that developers are now satisfied with the semantics being in their component names and props, and don't care if it actually gets rendered as undifferentiated divs? Basically, yes. Also, components often require extra div-nesting for robustness, and then there's the obfuscated classnames (CSS-in-JS), and the way responsiveness tends to be done these days (crude media query helper components that show/hide duplicated subsections of DOM for different devices). This all means the rendered DOM in devtools is bloated and hard to read anyway, so there's less point in caring about keeping it nice and clean. Also, if you're mostly focused on building individual components, you probably don't feel as much ownership over the page as a whole, so you don't think about how your rendered DOM affects the document outline. Without that bigger picture, semantics isn't as interesting.
- lallysingh 7y ago
  That kind of markup may also be useful for software analysis. Parsing prose is becoming tractable. Maybe Alexa or the (nameless) Google Assistant will be able to order the pizza for you. They're supposed to be able to do it over the phone.
- hnruss 7y ago
  Popular web design frameworks like Bootstrap consider accessibility and encourage it in their documentation. See: https://getbootstrap.com/docs/4.3/getting-started/accessibility/ https://getbootstrap.com/docs/4.3/getting-started/accessibil... Are there any accessibility-first web design frameworks?
  - deftnerd 7y ago
    I think the United States Web Design System might fit in that category. It's made by the US Digital Services, and describes itself as "A design system for the federal government. We make it easier to build accessible, mobile-friendly government websites for the American public." It's a well thought-out framework and from what I've read, accessibility was taken into account in the very first stage of the redesign of the new V2 https://designsystem.digital.gov/ https://designsystem.digital.gov/ Totally free since it's paid for with US tax dollars.

Angostura 7y ago

It seems to me that if this ruling is enforced and becomes accepted we may see a welcome move towards 'accessibility first' design - which would be an interesting paradigm shift for many devs.

playpause 7y ago
I would welcome 'accessibility first' if it means people start thinking about 'semantics' again. 10-15 years ago, the web dev world was obsessed with semantics, separation of style and content, the idea you could just edit CSS to do a complete redesign (like csszengarden.com), and your markup could remain untouched, understandable by all devices present and future. I think this notion still holds some power, but it's obviously taken a hit with the component paradigm. The modern approach of 'sprinkle-on' accessibility doesn't work as well, and just feels like a messy extra step you have to do when building a feature. It was much better when people cared about baking it in from the ground up, through considered semantics and document outlines.
- mwcampbell 7y ago
  > it's obviously taken a hit with the component paradigm Can you please explain how the component paradigm is at odds with semantic markup? Is it just that developers are now satisfied with the semantics being in their component names and props, and don't care if it actually gets rendered as undifferentiated divs? My own hypothesis is that React gave developers permission to question some things that were previously deemed sacred in web development, and developers went too far with that. Using a component framework like React or Vue is not inherently at odds with producing good semantic markup.
  - playpause 7y ago
    > Is it just that developers are now satisfied with the semantics being in their component names and props, and don't care if it actually gets rendered as undifferentiated divs? Basically, yes. Also, components often require extra div-nesting for robustness, and then there's the obfuscated classnames (CSS-in-JS), and the way responsiveness tends to be done these days (crude media query helper components that show/hide duplicated subsections of DOM for different devices). This all means the rendered DOM in devtools is bloated and hard to read anyway, so there's less point in caring about keeping it nice and clean. Also, if you're mostly focused on building individual components, you probably don't feel as much ownership over the page as a whole, so you don't think about how your rendered DOM affects the document outline. Without that bigger picture, semantics isn't as interesting.
lallysingh 7y ago
That kind of markup may also be useful for software analysis. Parsing prose is becoming tractable. Maybe Alexa or the (nameless) Google Assistant will be able to order the pizza for you. They're supposed to be able to do it over the phone.
hnruss 7y ago
Popular web design frameworks like Bootstrap consider accessibility and encourage it in their documentation. See: https://getbootstrap.com/docs/4.3/getting-started/accessibility/ https://getbootstrap.com/docs/4.3/getting-started/accessibil... Are there any accessibility-first web design frameworks?
- deftnerd 7y ago
  I think the United States Web Design System might fit in that category. It's made by the US Digital Services, and describes itself as "A design system for the federal government. We make it easier to build accessible, mobile-friendly government websites for the American public." It's a well thought-out framework and from what I've read, accessibility was taken into account in the very first stage of the redesign of the new V2 https://designsystem.digital.gov/ https://designsystem.digital.gov/ Totally free since it's paid for with US tax dollars.