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> It’s notable that accessibility isn’t mentioned once in this post, or, in fact, in the component’s documentation. It's a red flag for sure. That said, there'

by CharlesW 11mo ago

> It’s notable that accessibility isn’t mentioned once in this post, or, in fact, in the component’s documentation. It's a red flag for sure. That said, there's nothing preventing toasts from being accessible: https://react-spectrum.adobe.com/react-aria/useToast.html https://react-spectrum.adobe.com/react-aria/useToast.html I think it would be accurate for GitHub to say, "GitHub no longer uses toasts because we didn't want to make the effort to make them accessible or usable."

thunderfork 11mo ago
I think that toasts are kind of an attractive nuisance when it comes to accessibility. They can technically, with ample constraints and a great deal of restraint, maybe end up complying with WCAG, etc., but all it takes is one developer saying "well a toast is easy" or "this isn't that important, make it auto-dismiss" and you're back in bad pattern town. You see this with government web design systems - they have a very limited and constrained palette of patterns, because it allows for more consistency and reliable accessibility, versus having a bunch of tools that you just generally shouldn't use. (The GitHub page linked above also makes a great case for how "making toasts accessible" isn't as simple as just having the right aria roles - lots of details the Adobe design doesn't seem to completely cover, unfortunately)
robin_reala 11mo ago
Spectrum’s Toast docs don’t mention how they make Toasts accessible with screen magnifiers (more widely used than screen readers based on the last WebAIM surveys I saw), so I guess they didn’t consider them?
- MrJohz 11mo ago
  Everyone knows accessibility is just throwing aria tags at any element you see. The more aria tags there are, the more accessible it must be, right? /s
bitbasher 11mo ago
> It's a red flag for sure. The first red flag was the repeated screenshots featuring Theo Browne, as if his thoughts or ideas carry any kind of authority.

thunderfork 11mo ago

I think that toasts are kind of an attractive nuisance when it comes to accessibility. They can technically, with ample constraints and a great deal of restraint, maybe end up complying with WCAG, etc., but all it takes is one developer saying "well a toast is easy" or "this isn't that important, make it auto-dismiss" and you're back in bad pattern town. You see this with government web design systems - they have a very limited and constrained palette of patterns, because it allows for more consistency and reliable accessibility, versus having a bunch of tools that you just generally shouldn't use. (The GitHub page linked above also makes a great case for how "making toasts accessible" isn't as simple as just having the right aria roles - lots of details the Adobe design doesn't seem to completely cover, unfortunately)

robin_reala 11mo ago

Spectrum’s Toast docs don’t mention how they make Toasts accessible with screen magnifiers (more widely used than screen readers based on the last WebAIM surveys I saw), so I guess they didn’t consider them?

MrJohz 11mo ago
Everyone knows accessibility is just throwing aria tags at any element you see. The more aria tags there are, the more accessible it must be, right? /s

bitbasher 11mo ago

> It's a red flag for sure. The first red flag was the repeated screenshots featuring Theo Browne, as if his thoughts or ideas carry any kind of authority.