4 ms·

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 b

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.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  Fine then don't care if your website is unusable by a disabled person on a public computer. I don't control your life. 95 year old cobol hacker Mabel still can't install the extensions that are supposed to fix the problem you're talking about because a careless library sysadmin forgot to whitelist them or was worried about malware hijacks. Accessible design is beautiful design because function is the essence of beauty though. Any website that excludes part of the public is hideous. Websites that need their disabled users to execute sketchy arbitrary code to fix a UI that is physically hard to use are badly designed. "lol just run an extension" is something that sounds very simple but is FAR more complicated if you care about things like security and compatibility and aesthetics. Disabled users should get the same experience using your website, the same aesthetics, and the same security as your other users. I don't accept rationalisation of inaccessible design in actual developer tooling or websites with a substantial amount of users. The damage caused to the disabled quickly exceeds the convenience afforded to developers once you're hitting user counts in the thousands.
  - bogwog 4y ago
    I think that other commenter baited you into a stupid emotional/culture war internet thing. That wasn't me, and I don't think that your rhetoric in this comment is called for. I have never said "lol just run an extension". That's completely dismissing/ignoring my argument, and kind of disrespectful. It doesn't seem like you're actually trying to have a productive argument, especially since you're calling your own argument irrational: > I don't accept rationalisation of inaccessible design in actual developer tooling or websites with a substantial amount of users ... So if you're just trying to get into an internet slap fight with somebody, go do it with that other guy.
Test0129 4y ago
> 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. It's always funny when people get on their virtue bully pulpit and then immediately go to ageism. Nice work. > 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. So I as an independent developer am responsible for this in all of my public code? That's asinine. My home is catered to me, if people want to visit me in my home I am not going to change my door knobs, fix my windows, redo my concrete, etc so it can happen. It's mine and out of the charity of my heart I am letting other people use it if they need it. Where do you draw the line? It sounds like you want FAANG to be the only game in town given they're probably the only people with the budget and bodies to fulfill all of your requirements. I don't see someone repackaging firefox as "firefox with accessibility", or using an add-on, as an undo burden on taking advantage of a service voluntarily provided, and most importantly does not compel you to use it.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  I don't care about being accused of an -ism, I care about old people being able to use the internet. The ones I provide free IT services for are in the early stages of dementia. I bought such person a computer out of my own pocket with an extra large 17" screen, specifically because I have no faith in web developers to give a crap if they can use their website, and larger fonts are readable with less contrast. I'm a horrible ageist because I think vision related accessibility features are especially important for older people. I am morally below you. >It sounds like you want FAANG to be the only game in town given they're probably the only people with the budget and bodies to fulfill all of your requirements Have building codes caused the independent contractor to go extinct? There are various ways to scale accessibility and make it easy like building it directly into UI toolkits, frameworks, etc. In fact the criticism in this thread isn't aimed at Joe developer making a small website, it's somebody making a tool that many developers will use that will break their sites functionality. I care much more when somebody is making inaccessible tooling that's bad than I do when an unskilled developer doesn't know how to design an accessible UI. I don't expect every website made by every developer at every skill level no matter how old or niche it is to be accessible, I'm not insane. Yet contrast has to be one of the absolute easiest parts of accessibility (compared to say making a site screen reader compatible) and most of the excuses for not caring about it are exceedingly lame. Even for NON-DISABLED users low contrast is a hallmark of bad design and a site that's difficult to actually use.

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.

faeriechangling 4y ago
Fine then don't care if your website is unusable by a disabled person on a public computer. I don't control your life. 95 year old cobol hacker Mabel still can't install the extensions that are supposed to fix the problem you're talking about because a careless library sysadmin forgot to whitelist them or was worried about malware hijacks. Accessible design is beautiful design because function is the essence of beauty though. Any website that excludes part of the public is hideous. Websites that need their disabled users to execute sketchy arbitrary code to fix a UI that is physically hard to use are badly designed. "lol just run an extension" is something that sounds very simple but is FAR more complicated if you care about things like security and compatibility and aesthetics. Disabled users should get the same experience using your website, the same aesthetics, and the same security as your other users. I don't accept rationalisation of inaccessible design in actual developer tooling or websites with a substantial amount of users. The damage caused to the disabled quickly exceeds the convenience afforded to developers once you're hitting user counts in the thousands.
- bogwog 4y ago
  I think that other commenter baited you into a stupid emotional/culture war internet thing. That wasn't me, and I don't think that your rhetoric in this comment is called for. I have never said "lol just run an extension". That's completely dismissing/ignoring my argument, and kind of disrespectful. It doesn't seem like you're actually trying to have a productive argument, especially since you're calling your own argument irrational: > I don't accept rationalisation of inaccessible design in actual developer tooling or websites with a substantial amount of users ... So if you're just trying to get into an internet slap fight with somebody, go do it with that other guy.

Test0129 4y ago

> 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. It's always funny when people get on their virtue bully pulpit and then immediately go to ageism. Nice work. > 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. So I as an independent developer am responsible for this in all of my public code? That's asinine. My home is catered to me, if people want to visit me in my home I am not going to change my door knobs, fix my windows, redo my concrete, etc so it can happen. It's mine and out of the charity of my heart I am letting other people use it if they need it. Where do you draw the line? It sounds like you want FAANG to be the only game in town given they're probably the only people with the budget and bodies to fulfill all of your requirements. I don't see someone repackaging firefox as "firefox with accessibility", or using an add-on, as an undo burden on taking advantage of a service voluntarily provided, and most importantly does not compel you to use it.

faeriechangling 4y ago
I don't care about being accused of an -ism, I care about old people being able to use the internet. The ones I provide free IT services for are in the early stages of dementia. I bought such person a computer out of my own pocket with an extra large 17" screen, specifically because I have no faith in web developers to give a crap if they can use their website, and larger fonts are readable with less contrast. I'm a horrible ageist because I think vision related accessibility features are especially important for older people. I am morally below you. >It sounds like you want FAANG to be the only game in town given they're probably the only people with the budget and bodies to fulfill all of your requirements Have building codes caused the independent contractor to go extinct? There are various ways to scale accessibility and make it easy like building it directly into UI toolkits, frameworks, etc. In fact the criticism in this thread isn't aimed at Joe developer making a small website, it's somebody making a tool that many developers will use that will break their sites functionality. I care much more when somebody is making inaccessible tooling that's bad than I do when an unskilled developer doesn't know how to design an accessible UI. I don't expect every website made by every developer at every skill level no matter how old or niche it is to be accessible, I'm not insane. Yet contrast has to be one of the absolute easiest parts of accessibility (compared to say making a site screen reader compatible) and most of the excuses for not caring about it are exceedingly lame. Even for NON-DISABLED users low contrast is a hallmark of bad design and a site that's difficult to actually use.