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I get the point you're trying to make, but isn't installing an accessibility extension or enabling accessibility features in your browser/OS the equivalent of b

• faeriechangling 4y ago
  No it’s not the same, have you ever used a wheelchair or known a user? Many many adaptions have to be made to basically every building for that wheelchair to be functional. Curb cuts on sidewalks, buttons on doors, elevators everywhere. Simply “getting into a wheelchair” isn’t enough to make accessibility work, you need to fundamentally change the infrastructure. Don’t put the disabled in the position where the website itself takes extra steps just to be usable for them, old 90 year old grandma Betty with failing vision is never going to figure such things out and saying “lol just figure it out” isn’t good enough. Those extensions that repaint websites with a new color palette are ugly as crap and buggy, and anybody with the attitude their website doesn’t need to follow WCAG by default definitely hasn’t actually checked such extensions actually work. The burden of trying to make sure every such extension is compatible is dramatically harder than just making the site accessible to begin with, the entire approach is bad design, it’s harder for everybody. What you’re doing is less building a wheelchair ramp and more leaving a pile of lumber next to some stairs, building the wheelchair ramp would mean having an accessible theme be the default and maybe the OPs theme be an alternate. The analogy I would make is actually round doorknobs vs door levers/handles. If you pay attention you will notice you don’t see doorknobs on new public buildings and that’s because of issues like arthritis. Yes somebody might aesthetically prefer doorknobs but that doesn’t justify their installation in something used by the general public. It’s fine for a PRIVATE website to be as inaccessible as you want, but not a public one.
  • bogwog 4y ago
    > No it’s not the same, have you ever used a wheelchair or known a user? Many many adaptions have to be made to basically every building for that wheelchair to be functional. Curb cuts on sidewalks, buttons on doors, elevators everywhere. Simply “getting into a wheelchair” isn’t enough to make accessibility work, you need to fundamentally change the infrastructure. That's my point: websites don't need any adaptations to work with wheelchairs (with "wheelchairs" being accessibility extensions/settings in this analogy). If you bring your own wheelchair, it will work with every website. That's not true in the real world, so having laws for it makes sense. > Don’t put the disabled in the position where the website itself takes extra steps just to be usable for them, old 90 year old grandma Betty with failing vision is never going to figure such things out and saying “lol just figure it out” isn’t good enough. I'm not sure how to respond to this. First of all, you don't need a custom an extension per-website. You can install one extension, and it will work the same for all websites. You might not even need to install an extension, because Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and even Gnome and KDE have tons of accessibility features built-in. Furthermore, there are some tech-savvy grandmas out there. If Betty isn't tech-savvy, then her grandchild should've set her PC up for her. If she has failing vision, she's not going to be able to use the computer/phone at all unless someone enabled a magnifier/voice assistant/increased the font size. > Those extensions that repaint websites with a new color palette are ugly as crap and buggy, and anybody with the attitude their website doesn’t need to follow WCAG by default definitely hasn’t actually checked such extensions actually work. You're making a lot of assumptions here. "ugly" is personal taste, although I do think most designers would consider enormous fonts to be "ugly as crap", but it's what's required for people with visual impairments. Also, just because a website isn't adhering to WCAG recommendations doesn't mean they didn't test it with accessibility extensions. Maybe there aren't enough resources to build a WCAG-compliant design, but a designer on the team can make a few minor tweaks so that they work well with popular accessibility extensions/features. > What you’re doing is less building a wheelchair ramp and more leaving a pile of lumber next to some stairs, building the wheelchair ramp would mean having an accessible theme be the default and maybe the OPs theme be an alternate. I don't think that's an accurate analogy. Like I said, a browser extension doesn't need to be customized per-website to be work. A person with disabilities is going to enable accessibility features on their device (or someone else will do it for them). Depending on the situation, that might include a browser extension as well. ...but again, I don't know much about accessibility issues. However, this response hasn't convinced me that it's unreasonable for web devs/publishers to expect users with disabilities to bring their own extensions/accessibility features.
• kixiQu 4y ago
  https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/ <- I think this is absolutely crucial to keep in mind with these discussions. Figuring out that you need extra accessibility tools, finding them, installing them, configuring them, and using them seems at least level 2 on the skill rubric here – so we're talking about skills that only about a quarter of adults younger than 66 have. Older adults have lower skills and tend to have higher rates of vision issues. As a comparison, more than a third of people in LA county speak Spanish (http://www.laalmanac.com/population/po47.php http://www.laalmanac.com/population/po47.php). It would not be reasonable for supposedly public communications to be only available in Spanish for the #aesthetic, and to tell the 60% of the population that doesn't speak Spanish to kick rocks – and these numbers are better than the portions we're talking about. Compare insurance designed around the idea that an expert is going to need to design an assistive technology setup: optical insurance so a professional can tell me my prescription. Or the "wheelchair" comparison: even with ramp requirements, using a wheelchair involves ongoing management by a doctor over a user's often lifelong use. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7384540/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7384540/) There isn't a professional service that exists to unbreak the display of websites that could just have been made properly contrasting in the first place, and... there shouldn't be.
  • bogwog 4y ago
    That's a good point about computer skills, however I think that's the fault of the device/OS/browser vendor, and they're the ones who should fix it. Most modern devices come with a setup process that guides users through setting up accessibility features. Extending that to installing third-party browser extensions is...complicated to say the least, but I think that's a far more effective solution to this problem than simply hoping that every website will adhere to some accessibility guidelines. Web standards were created to be accessible basically from day 1. The user agent (web browser/client) is in control of how a website is displayed, and the user is able to change it however they want. Whether that's 10x font sizes, or increasing color contrast, it just takes a few lines of CSS (which an extension can add automatically). > As a comparison, more than a third of people in LA county speak Spanish (http://www.laalmanac.com/population/po47.php http://www.laalmanac.com/population/po47.php). It would not be reasonable for supposedly public communications to be only available in Spanish for the #aesthetic, and to tell the 60% of the population that doesn't speak Spanish to kick rocks – and these numbers are better than the portions we're talking about. I don't think that's a good example because government communications are different from private entities. Nobody has to eat at a spanish-only restaurant, and anybody can learn to speak spanish. If that restaurant doesn't speak english, then the free market will force them out of business... and if it doesn't, well, then whose to say it's not a good idea? By contrast, a person missing both legs can't just learn to walk, so not having a wheelchair ramp is just fucked up. > There isn't a professional service that exists to unbreak the display of websites that could just have been made properly contrasting in the first place, and... there shouldn't be. Sure, but the likelihood of every website adopting accessibility standards is basically zero. Investing in a powerful set of accessibility tools/extensions seems much more impactful IMO than trying to coerce and/or force developers to adhere to some standards that are likely not a silver bullet anyways.