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Accessibility is easily overlooked but in my opinion provides a much more direct and widespread impact than the mentioned ESG - and often provide value to more

by fwr 3y ago

Accessibility is easily overlooked but in my opinion provides a much more direct and widespread impact than the mentioned ESG - and often provide value to more people than originally intended - I'm thinking of subtitles in videos that immensely helped me learn English, and public infrastructure adaptations for wheelchair users which also greatly benefit others - like mothers with strollers. I wish more things were designed with an accessibility-first mindset - enabling edge cases might seem like overkill at first, but it could bring unforseen advantages.

ncr100 3y ago
Regarding prioritizing - I feel Accessibility is in battle with Denial. - Have you also witnessed your product-business / employer ignoring user pain to chase MVP?
- Our_Benefactors 3y ago
  So look at this as changing the definition of what “minimum viable” means in your organization. Maybe you can make the case for why every link and image should have aria tags, since it’s a new app and assets are more likely to be missing. Or maybe you know that keyboard controls need to be implemented, but you didn’t consider focus trapping for assistive users. Accessibility isn’t a binary, but a sliding scale. At the top of the market you get insanity like WCAG AAA, which straight up invalidates most of the modern web because it’s so restrictive.
marginalia_nu 3y ago
I think the elephant in the room is that in many cases, the only way to improve accessibility beyond a fairly low point is to lower the utility. A good example of this is tables. Tables are amazing at conveying large amounts of complex data in a very intuitive way. Not only that, it's great at manipulating data as well. It is not without reason Excel is powering a significant portion of the business world, and try as many startups have, it's very hard to pry Excel out of the hands of people who are using it. Excel is extremely versatile and very good at what it does, owing largely to the table metaphor. Problem is that tables are also not very accessible. Among other things, they all but require sightedness. They also don't really work on mobile in any practical sense. At the same time, any accessible alternative to large tables are a strict utility downgrade for people who are able to partake in tabular data. Starting with an accessibility first design principle, it would not be possible to produce something like Excel. We'd be stuck with a hell consisting of a million mobile apps, one for each conceivable workflow and task, rather than having one tool that can be made to perform any data manipulation task.
- hulitu 3y ago
  > I think the elephant in the room is that in many cases, the only way to improve accessibility beyond a fairly low point is to lower the utility. They did this on Windows and on Android. It didn't work. Try resizing a window on 4k screen in win 10. Or try to get rid of an error message in Android 10 (hint: there is no Ok or Cancel button and the error message obscures other UI elements).
- Frummy 3y ago
  Maybe in some cases. I think it's a creativity issue. In an ideal world the utility can be preserved or increased, with the use of an innovation that improves significantly the life of the functionally varied, with secondary effect of reducing for example cognitive strain on the original user. There may challenges in mindset, funding, time, organisation, lack of understanding or empathy, and so on, for this to be reality. But I would argue that there is a flow of unforeseen benefit from the user that requires a feature, to users that don't require a feature but reduces time and energy spent on getting something done just because the path is shorter, easier, friendlier. Personally I have used many accessibility features as part of small productivity hacks. I also think the study of for example UI accessibility doesn't only apply to the functionally varied but also makes life easier for any user.
  - marginalia_nu 3y ago
    If you ignore all the cases where a statement is contradicted, any statement appears true. Ultimately the visual medium permits random access 2D representations of information that just aren't viable in the sequential-access 1D medium of speech / small screens. Sometimes accessibility improvements are to general benefit, but this isn't universally true.
    - Frummy 3y ago
      You claim utility first and accessibility as first principle removes utility. Removes utility for who? Accessibility is all about utility for the groups who need it the most. You can have normal excel and an excel that uses sound for blind people on the side. It's not one or the other, and the other in this case also puts utility first for the people it applies to. And what you learn from that can make normal excel better too.

by fwr 3y ago

ncr100 3y ago

Regarding prioritizing - I feel Accessibility is in battle with Denial. - Have you also witnessed your product-business / employer ignoring user pain to chase MVP?

Our_Benefactors 3y ago
So look at this as changing the definition of what “minimum viable” means in your organization. Maybe you can make the case for why every link and image should have aria tags, since it’s a new app and assets are more likely to be missing. Or maybe you know that keyboard controls need to be implemented, but you didn’t consider focus trapping for assistive users. Accessibility isn’t a binary, but a sliding scale. At the top of the market you get insanity like WCAG AAA, which straight up invalidates most of the modern web because it’s so restrictive.

marginalia_nu 3y ago

I think the elephant in the room is that in many cases, the only way to improve accessibility beyond a fairly low point is to lower the utility. A good example of this is tables. Tables are amazing at conveying large amounts of complex data in a very intuitive way. Not only that, it's great at manipulating data as well. It is not without reason Excel is powering a significant portion of the business world, and try as many startups have, it's very hard to pry Excel out of the hands of people who are using it. Excel is extremely versatile and very good at what it does, owing largely to the table metaphor. Problem is that tables are also not very accessible. Among other things, they all but require sightedness. They also don't really work on mobile in any practical sense. At the same time, any accessible alternative to large tables are a strict utility downgrade for people who are able to partake in tabular data. Starting with an accessibility first design principle, it would not be possible to produce something like Excel. We'd be stuck with a hell consisting of a million mobile apps, one for each conceivable workflow and task, rather than having one tool that can be made to perform any data manipulation task.

hulitu 3y ago
> I think the elephant in the room is that in many cases, the only way to improve accessibility beyond a fairly low point is to lower the utility. They did this on Windows and on Android. It didn't work. Try resizing a window on 4k screen in win 10. Or try to get rid of an error message in Android 10 (hint: there is no Ok or Cancel button and the error message obscures other UI elements).
Frummy 3y ago
Maybe in some cases. I think it's a creativity issue. In an ideal world the utility can be preserved or increased, with the use of an innovation that improves significantly the life of the functionally varied, with secondary effect of reducing for example cognitive strain on the original user. There may challenges in mindset, funding, time, organisation, lack of understanding or empathy, and so on, for this to be reality. But I would argue that there is a flow of unforeseen benefit from the user that requires a feature, to users that don't require a feature but reduces time and energy spent on getting something done just because the path is shorter, easier, friendlier. Personally I have used many accessibility features as part of small productivity hacks. I also think the study of for example UI accessibility doesn't only apply to the functionally varied but also makes life easier for any user.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  If you ignore all the cases where a statement is contradicted, any statement appears true. Ultimately the visual medium permits random access 2D representations of information that just aren't viable in the sequential-access 1D medium of speech / small screens. Sometimes accessibility improvements are to general benefit, but this isn't universally true.
  - Frummy 3y ago
    You claim utility first and accessibility as first principle removes utility. Removes utility for who? Accessibility is all about utility for the groups who need it the most. You can have normal excel and an excel that uses sound for blind people on the side. It's not one or the other, and the other in this case also puts utility first for the people it applies to. And what you learn from that can make normal excel better too.