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> they focused on satisfying the law and the rules. They focused on completeness, on perfection, on conformance to spec Did the gov contractors do things like

> they focused on satisfying the law and the rules. They focused on completeness, on perfection, on conformance to spec Did the gov contractors do things like ensure the site was accessible? Because those laws exist for a reason, and the official government website SHOULD be held to comply with them. Sometimes this is detrimental to how slick a site looks. While your friends site has much less of an obligation to comply with this kind of requirement, a quick check shows that something as simple as contrast is not good enough for vision impaired users https://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://www.getcalfresh.org https://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://www.getcalfresh.org This ideas that > user experience just ended up being a low priority may be better stated as > user experience for people like me just ended up being a low priority

coryrc 7y ago
Perhaps the needs of the many should outweigh the needs of the few?
- hehwhd7jsna 7y ago
  The convenience of the many outweighs the needs of the few.
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  There is little need of any sort of trade off as simple enough sites are trivial to make accessible.
- wpietri 7y ago
  No. One, the needs often aren't in conflict. Building an accessible website doesn't hurt people who don't need it. Two, government is there to serve everybody, and in practice a lot of the people it serves directly are the ones already neglected by commerce, so it needs to be especially good at not just ignoring "the few".
- bberenberg 7y ago
  I think that this is the exact opposite of the point of government programs. We try to build these programs in such a way that they avoid the tyranny of the majority. Especially when you consider that those who need accessible interfaces are more likely to need government assistance in other parts of their lives.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Not for The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.
wpietri 7y ago
Thanks for pointing it out! I don't know anybody working on it any more, but I encourage you to contact GCF and let them know. You're welcome to evaluate the government contractor sites yourself. You can start here, but the tool varies by county: http://www.benefitscal.com/ http://www.benefitscal.com/ Picking the first one, I see more errors: https://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://www.mybenefitscalwin.org/ https://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://www.mybenefitscalwin... And I should add that technical compliance with standards is one thing, and actual usability for people with disabilities is another. Given that the contractor-built application tools were hard for everybody to use, I would be surprised to learn that they were notably better for people with disabilities. The specifics aside, I think you make a great point. Governments are mandated to serve everybody, while startups are mostly interested in people they can easily profit from serving. So startup-world techniques need to be applied differently in government contexts."Up and to the right" isn't enough.
ctidd 7y ago
I feel compelled to step in here and hopefully provide some insight on what that report means, because it doesn't appear to be what you implied. * Edit: The header image failed to load for me and complicates much of what I said in the following paragraph; it isn't as cut and dry as it first appeared. First off, that automated WAVE report is stellar for GetCalFresh. The color contrast here is an excellent example of strict conformance to WCAG 2.0 AA contrast requirements. (Most of the site is hitting AAA contrast requirements, which is above and beyond.) The report identifies a issue for an image element's contrast in the footer. Please note that this is a false positive; the actual visual contrast meets the requirement. Heading levels are always a bit of a mess as projects get larger, but as the linked report shows, they could easily be improved slightly in this case. That's not going to outright break the site or render it inaccessible; however, it is a slightly less navigable experience for a user. Finally, it's important to look at both the spirit and practice of conformance to accessibility standards. In spirit, these are usability standards. You can build something that checks all the automatically enforceable, auditable boxes in the standards, but is unusable in practice. Or you can focus on delivering a strong experience to users, focusing on the POUR principles, and I'd argue that's what an accessible experience should look like (not to exclude ensuring the more baseline elements of conformance, of course).
- bberenberg 7y ago
  Thanks for clarifying! I am not an accessibility expert so sounds like I misread the report :D What GCF did is commendable, and I am happy to hear that they did well on the accessibility side. At the same time my goal was less to point out an issue with GCF, but rather to point out that government websites may not feel as slick as we're used to for a variety of reasons that a quick look may not reveal.

coryrc 7y ago

Perhaps the needs of the many should outweigh the needs of the few?

hehwhd7jsna 7y ago
The convenience of the many outweighs the needs of the few.
michaelmrose 7y ago
There is little need of any sort of trade off as simple enough sites are trivial to make accessible.
wpietri 7y ago
No. One, the needs often aren't in conflict. Building an accessible website doesn't hurt people who don't need it. Two, government is there to serve everybody, and in practice a lot of the people it serves directly are the ones already neglected by commerce, so it needs to be especially good at not just ignoring "the few".
bberenberg 7y ago
I think that this is the exact opposite of the point of government programs. We try to build these programs in such a way that they avoid the tyranny of the majority. Especially when you consider that those who need accessible interfaces are more likely to need government assistance in other parts of their lives.
lonelappde 7y ago
Not for The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.

wpietri 7y ago

Thanks for pointing it out! I don't know anybody working on it any more, but I encourage you to contact GCF and let them know. You're welcome to evaluate the government contractor sites yourself. You can start here, but the tool varies by county: http://www.benefitscal.com/ http://www.benefitscal.com/ Picking the first one, I see more errors: https://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://www.mybenefitscalwin.org/ https://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://www.mybenefitscalwin... And I should add that technical compliance with standards is one thing, and actual usability for people with disabilities is another. Given that the contractor-built application tools were hard for everybody to use, I would be surprised to learn that they were notably better for people with disabilities. The specifics aside, I think you make a great point. Governments are mandated to serve everybody, while startups are mostly interested in people they can easily profit from serving. So startup-world techniques need to be applied differently in government contexts."Up and to the right" isn't enough.

ctidd 7y ago

I feel compelled to step in here and hopefully provide some insight on what that report means, because it doesn't appear to be what you implied. * Edit: The header image failed to load for me and complicates much of what I said in the following paragraph; it isn't as cut and dry as it first appeared. First off, that automated WAVE report is stellar for GetCalFresh. The color contrast here is an excellent example of strict conformance to WCAG 2.0 AA contrast requirements. (Most of the site is hitting AAA contrast requirements, which is above and beyond.) The report identifies a issue for an image element's contrast in the footer. Please note that this is a false positive; the actual visual contrast meets the requirement. Heading levels are always a bit of a mess as projects get larger, but as the linked report shows, they could easily be improved slightly in this case. That's not going to outright break the site or render it inaccessible; however, it is a slightly less navigable experience for a user. Finally, it's important to look at both the spirit and practice of conformance to accessibility standards. In spirit, these are usability standards. You can build something that checks all the automatically enforceable, auditable boxes in the standards, but is unusable in practice. Or you can focus on delivering a strong experience to users, focusing on the POUR principles, and I'd argue that's what an accessible experience should look like (not to exclude ensuring the more baseline elements of conformance, of course).

bberenberg 7y ago
Thanks for clarifying! I am not an accessibility expert so sounds like I misread the report :D What GCF did is commendable, and I am happy to hear that they did well on the accessibility side. At the same time my goal was less to point out an issue with GCF, but rather to point out that government websites may not feel as slick as we're used to for a variety of reasons that a quick look may not reveal.