4 ms·

That's because at the end of the day: - accessibility is just usability. all it is is making sure your product is as usable by as many people as possible. - i

That's because at the end of the day: - accessibility is just usability. all it is is making sure your product is as usable by as many people as possible. - it's a myth that "people with disabilities" are some other that excludes you, and 'accessibility' or assistive technologies only benefits other people. Everyone is only temporarily 'abled'. You need to use prescription glasses to comfortable read a computer screen? You're a parent trying to watch some TV while getting your child to sleep? All benefit from assistive technologies.

Xirdus 28d ago
> accessibility is just usability. all it is is making sure your product is as usable by as many people as possible. Not always. There are things that increase usability for fully abled people but decrease it for disabled people. Color-coding is a common one. Another is using smaller font size to make more info visible at once, or advanced touch gestures that can be accidentally triggered by shaky hands. Then there are accessibility features that actively harm fully abled users, like sticky keys or screen readers that automatically follow focused UI elements.
- umpalumpaaa 28d ago
  Colors should be an OS feature. On iOS and macOS you can remap colors globally and it works in all native apps. There are presets fire the common cases: red/green issues, color blindness etc and you can make your own. This has its limitations though eg if you are not able to distinguish at least 5 or so colors… any colors.
  - rhdunn 28d ago
    That's why you don't just use colour for identification. E.g. include a warning icon next to a button/element in addition to using a warning colour.
    - Cthulhu_ 28d ago
      Nor just shape, so a warning icon + text message.
      - mghackerlady 27d ago
        and, as is being increasingly forgotten, SOUND QUES. Seriously, I get they can be annoying but they make navigating and interacting with things so much easier if you can't see them. Sure, TTS exists but is far more inefficient and objectively less helpful in these kinds of circumstances
        Xirdus 27d ago
        Another great example of increasing accessibility while reducing usability.
        DerekL 27d ago
        *cues
  - OhNoNotAgain_99 28d ago
    [dead]
  - xg15 28d ago
    should be, but then you will upset all the marketing folks and their brandings.
- ckardaris 28d ago
  But you can — or should be able to — independently toggle all of those features. For example, the app should work in high-contrast mode with disabled color coding, it should work with touch gestures disabled, etc. A good common framework helps here. Then, it's up to each user to set their settings properly.
  - Xirdus 28d ago
    Riddle me this - why would you want to disable something that increases usability of an application? (Yes, this is a loaded question - I never said these features are bad, just that usability and accessibility are sometimes at odds with each other.)
    - ckardaris 28d ago
      Sometimes users may prefer to reduce the degree of accessibility of an application in favor of aesthetics.
      - Xirdus 28d ago
        I have my opinion on aesthetics of additional ways of repeating information already available by color coding. But to each their own. Other than that, is enabling/disabling any of the aforementioned features ever a question of aesthetics?
        ckardaris 28d ago
        For example, opting to not enable high-contrast mode is a question of aesthetics. Arguably reading text would become easier for the user, but they prefer to sacrifice a little of the readability in favor of looks.
        apothegm 28d ago
        In fact, for some people high contrast is headache-inducing. I’ve installed a utility on my laptop that supports “sub-zero” display dimming for nighttime use because monitors are now over-optimized for max brightness, with min brightness being retina-searing for eyes adjusted to a dim room.
- miki123211 28d ago
  Color coding doesn't decrease usability for disabled people (and I say that as a screen reader user). You just need to ensure that color is not the only way the relevant information is conveyed.
  - Xirdus 28d ago
    Certain types of colorblindness combined with certain colors makes text much harder to read than black-on-white. If you limit yourself to just universally readable colors, you're heavily limiting the number of different categories you can highlight. There's also the matter of screen real estate - duplicating info isn't helpful for people who can deal with colors just fine. I'm not saying it's a srong thing to do, just pointing out accessibility and usability are different things.
    - wtetzner 28d ago
      Couldn't you distinguish things by their grayscale value? Then you change the hue on top of that for people who can see color.
      - lowercased 28d ago
        May not always be enough contrast to pass WCAG requirements, for example.
  - deleted 28d ago
    [deleted]
- madeofpalk 28d ago
  > Another is using smaller font size to make more info visible at once This doesn't sound very usable to me.
  - mrob 28d ago
    Everybody has some minimum text size they're comfortable with. If you make the text bigger than that, they're forced to scroll unnecessarily, which is less usable. But the size differs from person to person, so it should be configurable. You get this automatically with web browsers and most GUI frameworks if you don't go out of your way to break it (just stick with the default font).
  - Xirdus 27d ago
    You might be the kind of person who does benefit from accessibility features such as larger font size. On the other hand, I'm not; I can read 10pt font on 100 DPI display just fine, without glasses. I'd rather have an extra column in table view visible without scrolling than larger letters, but for you the tradeoff might be different. That's why it's accessibility and not usability. Usability would be if the bigger font didn't push anything off screen, then of course it's better to make it bigger.
    - account42 25d ago
      Yes and unfortunately font size is usually one of those things where everyone is subjected to the "improvement". Accessibility guidelines should not be specifying minimum font sizes but rather require websites to respect the browser settings.

Xirdus 28d ago

> accessibility is just usability. all it is is making sure your product is as usable by as many people as possible. Not always. There are things that increase usability for fully abled people but decrease it for disabled people. Color-coding is a common one. Another is using smaller font size to make more info visible at once, or advanced touch gestures that can be accidentally triggered by shaky hands. Then there are accessibility features that actively harm fully abled users, like sticky keys or screen readers that automatically follow focused UI elements.

umpalumpaaa 28d ago
Colors should be an OS feature. On iOS and macOS you can remap colors globally and it works in all native apps. There are presets fire the common cases: red/green issues, color blindness etc and you can make your own. This has its limitations though eg if you are not able to distinguish at least 5 or so colors… any colors.
- rhdunn 28d ago
  That's why you don't just use colour for identification. E.g. include a warning icon next to a button/element in addition to using a warning colour.
  - Cthulhu_ 28d ago
    Nor just shape, so a warning icon + text message.
    - mghackerlady 27d ago
      and, as is being increasingly forgotten, SOUND QUES. Seriously, I get they can be annoying but they make navigating and interacting with things so much easier if you can't see them. Sure, TTS exists but is far more inefficient and objectively less helpful in these kinds of circumstances
      - Xirdus 27d ago
        Another great example of increasing accessibility while reducing usability.
      - DerekL 27d ago
        *cues
- OhNoNotAgain_99 28d ago
  [dead]
- xg15 28d ago
  should be, but then you will upset all the marketing folks and their brandings.
ckardaris 28d ago
But you can — or should be able to — independently toggle all of those features. For example, the app should work in high-contrast mode with disabled color coding, it should work with touch gestures disabled, etc. A good common framework helps here. Then, it's up to each user to set their settings properly.
- Xirdus 28d ago
  Riddle me this - why would you want to disable something that increases usability of an application? (Yes, this is a loaded question - I never said these features are bad, just that usability and accessibility are sometimes at odds with each other.)
  - ckardaris 28d ago
    Sometimes users may prefer to reduce the degree of accessibility of an application in favor of aesthetics.
    - Xirdus 28d ago
      I have my opinion on aesthetics of additional ways of repeating information already available by color coding. But to each their own. Other than that, is enabling/disabling any of the aforementioned features ever a question of aesthetics?
      - ckardaris 28d ago
        For example, opting to not enable high-contrast mode is a question of aesthetics. Arguably reading text would become easier for the user, but they prefer to sacrifice a little of the readability in favor of looks.
        apothegm 28d ago
        In fact, for some people high contrast is headache-inducing. I’ve installed a utility on my laptop that supports “sub-zero” display dimming for nighttime use because monitors are now over-optimized for max brightness, with min brightness being retina-searing for eyes adjusted to a dim room.
miki123211 28d ago
Color coding doesn't decrease usability for disabled people (and I say that as a screen reader user). You just need to ensure that color is not the only way the relevant information is conveyed.
- Xirdus 28d ago
  Certain types of colorblindness combined with certain colors makes text much harder to read than black-on-white. If you limit yourself to just universally readable colors, you're heavily limiting the number of different categories you can highlight. There's also the matter of screen real estate - duplicating info isn't helpful for people who can deal with colors just fine. I'm not saying it's a srong thing to do, just pointing out accessibility and usability are different things.
  - wtetzner 28d ago
    Couldn't you distinguish things by their grayscale value? Then you change the hue on top of that for people who can see color.
    - lowercased 28d ago
      May not always be enough contrast to pass WCAG requirements, for example.
- deleted 28d ago
  [deleted]
madeofpalk 28d ago
> Another is using smaller font size to make more info visible at once This doesn't sound very usable to me.
- mrob 28d ago
  Everybody has some minimum text size they're comfortable with. If you make the text bigger than that, they're forced to scroll unnecessarily, which is less usable. But the size differs from person to person, so it should be configurable. You get this automatically with web browsers and most GUI frameworks if you don't go out of your way to break it (just stick with the default font).
- Xirdus 27d ago
  You might be the kind of person who does benefit from accessibility features such as larger font size. On the other hand, I'm not; I can read 10pt font on 100 DPI display just fine, without glasses. I'd rather have an extra column in table view visible without scrolling than larger letters, but for you the tradeoff might be different. That's why it's accessibility and not usability. Usability would be if the bigger font didn't push anything off screen, then of course it's better to make it bigger.
  - account42 25d ago
    Yes and unfortunately font size is usually one of those things where everyone is subjected to the "improvement". Accessibility guidelines should not be specifying minimum font sizes but rather require websites to respect the browser settings.