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Having several friends on the Apple a11y team, they really do work tirelessly to make the accessibility experience amazing. A lot of the engineers on that team

Having several friends on the Apple a11y team, they really do work tirelessly to make the accessibility experience amazing. A lot of the engineers on that team have visual, audiotory, or other physical impairment as well, which is really cool to see and as a result they’re all really invested in making the product accessibility awesome. Personal favorite “Easter egg” in their accessibility utilities is the baroque voiceover descriptions for the built-in wallpapers. A current colleague of mine shared it last week as part of Global Accessibility Awareness Day - https://twitter.com/mattt/status/1395439320652148736?s=21 https://twitter.com/mattt/status/1395439320652148736?s=21

pxc 5y ago
> A lot of the engineers on that team have visual, audiotory, or other physical impairment as well Imo this is really the only way to get accessibility right in practice. It makes sense that Apple has a reputation for good accessibility integration.
- bbarn 5y ago
  With that attitude, only the most elite and large companies would even consider it. It's not that you need someone with a handicap, it's simply that you need to consider them when you're building something.
  - atty 5y ago
    Almost any product that is built without input from the people who are going to use it is going to be inherently worse. Imagine a team creating a camera from scratch who are not photographers, and who never included any photographers in the design process. It would be a functioning camera, I’m sure, but it’s usability for real-world use would almost certainly be worse than those developed by teams that include professional photographers. The effect may be less for accessibility features, but it would still be there. I’d highly suggest anyone building out accessibility features to at least consult with disability advocates and other end users.
  - pxc 5y ago
    The problem is that the considerations are never adequate when they don't actually involve people who are directly affected. I remember one time my mom told me about a meeting she attended hosted by an organization in our state called ‘The Council for the Blind’. I think it was about how and where to get your COVID-19 vaccines. The presenter was a sighted man on the council. Apparently, although he could see his own notes, he had some trouble getting his PowerPoint presentation to display on the Zoom call. He spent 10 or 15 minutes fiddling with it before an attendee finally butted in and said ‘You know, most of us won't be able to see your slides at all even if you get them working. Why don't you just go ahead and post a link to them after the presentation?’. There are lapses of judgment that are possible even when you have every reason to, abstractly and externally, ‘consider’ the position of someone with a disability you don't have, but that just never occur when you have that disability. I know it's a silly story, but that kind of stuff happens ALL THE TIME. It's also really common for websites or software to have accessibility features that are so ill-considered, they're practically unusable. You're right that positions for, e.g., blind software engineers, could be hard to fill for small companies. But you don't have to involve disabled users only at that level to make sure that they're part of your development process. You could have disabled users as testers with much less difficulty, by reaching out to relevant organizations for (perhaps paid) volunteers.
  - dntrkv 5y ago
    > With that attitude, only the most elite and large companies would even consider it And that is usually the case in reality. Most small, custom built websites are unusable for the impaired. Doing a11y well requires effort.
hansoolo 5y ago
But isn't this completely useless for the visually impaired? How would they even care about the picture shown on their screen? This is a useless accessibility feature, if you ask me. It's over engineering.
- jtth 5y ago
  Phone wallpapers are social signifiers for sighted people.
- duskwuff 5y ago
  That's the point. It's an Easter egg -- extravagantly detailed accessibility descriptions for UI elements that non-sighted users will rarely interact with.
- taywrobel 5y ago
  If it’s something that makes someone understand and enjoy their chosen wallpaper preference better is it really useless? I guess it comes down to your personal interpretation of “usefulness”, but frankly I think you take for granted the amount of detail that you’re able to ascertain from being (presumably) fully sighted. There’s no reason that someone with any visual disability can’t appreciate a scene with as much detail and intricacy as you can, if it’s adequately conveyed to them. Words and grammar can be learned and expounded upon, but the description of a scene as “a tree on top of a hill” cannot, so why not err on the side of being overly descriptive for those that can understand, and leave the door open for those that can learn more?
- szhu 5y ago
  Do you care how your face looks when you go out? Why do you care, if you're not looking at it?

pxc 5y ago

> A lot of the engineers on that team have visual, audiotory, or other physical impairment as well Imo this is really the only way to get accessibility right in practice. It makes sense that Apple has a reputation for good accessibility integration.

bbarn 5y ago
With that attitude, only the most elite and large companies would even consider it. It's not that you need someone with a handicap, it's simply that you need to consider them when you're building something.
- atty 5y ago
  Almost any product that is built without input from the people who are going to use it is going to be inherently worse. Imagine a team creating a camera from scratch who are not photographers, and who never included any photographers in the design process. It would be a functioning camera, I’m sure, but it’s usability for real-world use would almost certainly be worse than those developed by teams that include professional photographers. The effect may be less for accessibility features, but it would still be there. I’d highly suggest anyone building out accessibility features to at least consult with disability advocates and other end users.
- pxc 5y ago
  The problem is that the considerations are never adequate when they don't actually involve people who are directly affected. I remember one time my mom told me about a meeting she attended hosted by an organization in our state called ‘The Council for the Blind’. I think it was about how and where to get your COVID-19 vaccines. The presenter was a sighted man on the council. Apparently, although he could see his own notes, he had some trouble getting his PowerPoint presentation to display on the Zoom call. He spent 10 or 15 minutes fiddling with it before an attendee finally butted in and said ‘You know, most of us won't be able to see your slides at all even if you get them working. Why don't you just go ahead and post a link to them after the presentation?’. There are lapses of judgment that are possible even when you have every reason to, abstractly and externally, ‘consider’ the position of someone with a disability you don't have, but that just never occur when you have that disability. I know it's a silly story, but that kind of stuff happens ALL THE TIME. It's also really common for websites or software to have accessibility features that are so ill-considered, they're practically unusable. You're right that positions for, e.g., blind software engineers, could be hard to fill for small companies. But you don't have to involve disabled users only at that level to make sure that they're part of your development process. You could have disabled users as testers with much less difficulty, by reaching out to relevant organizations for (perhaps paid) volunteers.
- dntrkv 5y ago
  > With that attitude, only the most elite and large companies would even consider it And that is usually the case in reality. Most small, custom built websites are unusable for the impaired. Doing a11y well requires effort.

hansoolo 5y ago

But isn't this completely useless for the visually impaired? How would they even care about the picture shown on their screen? This is a useless accessibility feature, if you ask me. It's over engineering.

jtth 5y ago
Phone wallpapers are social signifiers for sighted people.
duskwuff 5y ago
That's the point. It's an Easter egg -- extravagantly detailed accessibility descriptions for UI elements that non-sighted users will rarely interact with.
taywrobel 5y ago
If it’s something that makes someone understand and enjoy their chosen wallpaper preference better is it really useless? I guess it comes down to your personal interpretation of “usefulness”, but frankly I think you take for granted the amount of detail that you’re able to ascertain from being (presumably) fully sighted. There’s no reason that someone with any visual disability can’t appreciate a scene with as much detail and intricacy as you can, if it’s adequately conveyed to them. Words and grammar can be learned and expounded upon, but the description of a scene as “a tree on top of a hill” cannot, so why not err on the side of being overly descriptive for those that can understand, and leave the door open for those that can learn more?
szhu 5y ago
Do you care how your face looks when you go out? Why do you care, if you're not looking at it?