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The next time someone tries to tell me that a true screen reader should use computer vision and machine learning (including OCR) rather than requiring applicati
by mwcampbell 5y ago
The next time someone tries to tell me that a true screen reader should use computer vision and machine learning (including OCR) rather than requiring applications to implement accessibility APIs, I will bring up this case.
- SilasX 5y agoHN exchange: "Why can't we just, you know, direct blind users to a special protocol that structures the data appropriately and then lets them parse it however they want?" Me: 'We did! It's called HTML! Designers just broke it!' https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224961
- mwcampbell 5y agoIMO, HTML is still closer to that ideal than anything else we have. My guess is that given a random web application and a random non-web GUI (especially if the latter is multi-platform), the web application will be more usable with a screen reader.
- slaymaker1907 5y agoI'd say markdown is even better than HTML for writing generic documents since it enforces simplicity. In particular, it forces a linear flow of the document and does not have any support for stuff like JS.
- joquarky 5y agoAnd now many people are excited about throwing all of that away with canvas and web assembly.
- skyde 5y agoright! But we would not need to use canvas if updating the DOM was not super slow. I suspect the #1 reason is the layout/reflow engine but i might be wrong. Game engine do run physics at 60fps which is harder than CSS reflow.
- mmis1000 5y agoIs it possible for developer to make canvas accessible? For example, pronounce "You are one the road that goes from left to right, there is a shop on your top and a inn on bottom" like mud.
- gostsamo 5y agoReal accessibility is about presenting the same information your other users have. So, instead of you typing the description, let each of the drawn objects have its own description and made them discoverable and navigable. I think that Google were trying to make flutter2 components accessible, but it means starting from ground zero and building the same stuff anew.
- HeavyStorm 5y agoHtml could have been that - or better, it was at first - but instead of creating a more specialized solution for running rich apps we decided to exploit html. Right now we are in what I'd call the worse of both worlds, because we rely on html to do things it wasn't designed to, and there's no longer purity in any html out in the wild.
- gostsamo 5y agoYep, together with the ml screen reading, they do not offer subsidized infinite battery life and machine learning hardware for the inferring model.