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We need to admit that "modern" web pages are a thing. If we keep ignoring most of the web because "they are doing it wrong" then accessibility will never be so

We need to admit that "modern" web pages are a thing. If we keep ignoring most of the web because "they are doing it wrong" then accessibility will never be solved.

jraph 5y ago
It seems to me you can build quite complex things that will be accessible by default with the web platform. IF don't fight it and if you respect semantics and progressive enhancement / beautiful degradation. You get so much by default: legible colors and font sizes, tabbed page navigation, alt texts, clickable labels, zoomable interface... When you embrace the platform and its spirit, you get accessible results quite easily. But not a lot of people seem to embrace it. Many people seem to think "what to do for what I want to see" instead of "what to do for what I want to mean", and you lose if you do this. You need to get your meaning right and then decorate it carefully. You should not paint first. But that's probably not a web-specific issue. What's more, building accessible things may make you gain time, by having a robust basis. It's not always a cost.
- nightski 5y ago
  I'm just trying to step back and look at things objectively. Instead of saying "arg developers are just stupid" I'm trying to analyze why these mistakes are made so frequently (even at big corporations with lots of funding). There are native UI frameworks where this is not nearly as big of an issue. Too much freedom perhaps? Should you even be able to give a div an onclick handler? What about inputs? Why do developers have to make custom inputs because the core ones are severely lacking? That's where accessibility goes wrong. Because core functionality is terrible and needs to be augmented with richer functionality (but terrible from an accessibility perspective). There is something fundamental about this platform that does not naturally encourage good behavior. All you have to do is look at the evidence. As an dumb little example, it's not even obvious that making a div a button is bad unless you know that it is. The platform doesn't guide you at all. It has an onClick handler the same as a button. Little attempt is made to differentiate the two from an API perspective. I could give countless other examples, but I think I have demonstrated what I am getting at.
  - jraph 5y ago
    > Too much freedom perhaps? > Because core functionality is terrible and needs to be augmented with richer functionality Well, yes, I agree with both of these points. I think I get your point in the end, and your examples are convincing. I'd say the web platform is accessible by default but this is easy to break inadvertently and maybe not the ideal platform to build applications because despite its strong accessibility features, it's lacking for what we want to do with it today. HTML being a format to write documents first and not applications probably does not help neither.

We need to admit that "modern" web pages are a thing. If we keep ignoring most of the web because "they are doing it wrong" then accessibility will never be solved.

jraph 5y ago

It seems to me you can build quite complex things that will be accessible by default with the web platform. IF don't fight it and if you respect semantics and progressive enhancement / beautiful degradation. You get so much by default: legible colors and font sizes, tabbed page navigation, alt texts, clickable labels, zoomable interface... When you embrace the platform and its spirit, you get accessible results quite easily. But not a lot of people seem to embrace it. Many people seem to think "what to do for what I want to see" instead of "what to do for what I want to mean", and you lose if you do this. You need to get your meaning right and then decorate it carefully. You should not paint first. But that's probably not a web-specific issue. What's more, building accessible things may make you gain time, by having a robust basis. It's not always a cost.

nightski 5y ago
I'm just trying to step back and look at things objectively. Instead of saying "arg developers are just stupid" I'm trying to analyze why these mistakes are made so frequently (even at big corporations with lots of funding). There are native UI frameworks where this is not nearly as big of an issue. Too much freedom perhaps? Should you even be able to give a div an onclick handler? What about inputs? Why do developers have to make custom inputs because the core ones are severely lacking? That's where accessibility goes wrong. Because core functionality is terrible and needs to be augmented with richer functionality (but terrible from an accessibility perspective). There is something fundamental about this platform that does not naturally encourage good behavior. All you have to do is look at the evidence. As an dumb little example, it's not even obvious that making a div a button is bad unless you know that it is. The platform doesn't guide you at all. It has an onClick handler the same as a button. Little attempt is made to differentiate the two from an API perspective. I could give countless other examples, but I think I have demonstrated what I am getting at.
- jraph 5y ago
  > Too much freedom perhaps? > Because core functionality is terrible and needs to be augmented with richer functionality Well, yes, I agree with both of these points. I think I get your point in the end, and your examples are convincing. I'd say the web platform is accessible by default but this is easy to break inadvertently and maybe not the ideal platform to build applications because despite its strong accessibility features, it's lacking for what we want to do with it today. HTML being a format to write documents first and not applications probably does not help neither.