Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

blind.guru

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 333 posts

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#91

Post by jedimastert »

exergy wrote: post #40
jedimastert wrote: post #29

> However, being a blind person, I guess I have to accept that Google doesn't care anymore. Jumping from "this isn't working on my incredibly niche browser" to "Google don't care about blind people" is completely ridiculous.

Perhaps you could contribute better by citing examples where Google does care about blind people instead of calling an actual blind person's argument ridiculous.

It doesn't matter if he's blind; I'm calling the connections ridiculous. Lynx isn't a browser for blind people, it's a browser for the terminal. The terminal isn't some accessibility tool either, and was never made to be one. Drawing a connection between Lynx and blindness accessibility is tenuous, saying that this change is Google is attacking Lynx is even more tenuous, and drawing some sort of transitive connection between all of them to say that the change made is somehow against accessibility because it doesn't work on lynx is doubling so, bordering on...

It should also be noted that it seems that this is a bug with Lynx, not Google.

There's this is you care to read it: https://www.google.com/accessibility/

But that's not the point.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#92

Post by mavrc »

Endy wrote: post #90
leesalminen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience (years of talking IRL with thousands of users of my B2B SaaS product), there exists a large cohort of users that don't want to improve their computer skills. They want the software to make things as absolutely "user friendly" as possible. As an example, I tried standardizing on across our product (hundreds of fields). Within 24 hours we logged >1,000 tickets with users saying they disliked the change…

Then you have to make a choice - do you want to support pushing down the lowest common denominator? Or will you be a person of integrity, and take the most technically simple solutions to build a more powerful and fast tool? Greed and morality can't mix. I personally support morals.

> Greed and morality can't mix. I personally support morals.

Hold up, your position is that users that prefer something 'easy to use' as opposed to something 'powerful' are immoral? What am I missing here?

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#93

Post by mike_hock »

blauditore wrote: post #38
TeMPOraL wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be the first (EDIT: third) of six. > If all that stuff works for everyone, why did we invent new stuff? Just because? Or perhaps it wasn't really as amazing as well all remember. To better track people and push ads. It's really mostly just it. Modern web has very little to do with providing value to the end-user; any utility that's provided is mostly a side effect, and/or a vector to lure people into situations…

Come on, you can't be serious about this. Creating sophisticated web pages is massively easier than 10 or 20 years ago. Yes, HTML of plain simple text-only pages is still pretty much the same, but most users actually prefer visually fancier content with pictures and colors. Yes, companies presenting themselvses online profit of more capabilities. And yes, presenting ads is probably easier too. But if you think those…

Sure, new technologies have changed things for the better. Sophisticated web pages should be created when sophisticated web pages are necessary.

Sophisticated web pages are not necessary to disseminate text-only context. 90's HTML is perfectly capable of doing that.

I have no problem with loading 30MB of JS libraries into the browser for an application that actually does something. I have a problem with loading 30MB of shit to read 10kB worth of news.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#94

Post by CDSlice »

Endy wrote: post #90
leesalminen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience (years of talking IRL with thousands of users of my B2B SaaS product), there exists a large cohort of users that don't want to improve their computer skills. They want the software to make things as absolutely "user friendly" as possible. As an example, I tried standardizing on across our product (hundreds of fields). Within 24 hours we logged >1,000 tickets with users saying they disliked the change…

Then you have to make a choice - do you want to support pushing down the lowest common denominator? Or will you be a person of integrity, and take the most technically simple solutions to build a more powerful and fast tool? Greed and morality can't mix. I personally support morals.

How can what the parent did be considered immoral? It's not like they pushed tracking and ads down their customers throats, they just made the interface easier for people to use.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#95

Post by zeveb »

blauditore wrote: post #38
TeMPOraL wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be the first (EDIT: third) of six. > If all that stuff works for everyone, why did we invent new stuff? Just because? Or perhaps it wasn't really as amazing as well all remember. To better track people and push ads. It's really mostly just it. Modern web has very little to do with providing value to the end-user; any utility that's provided is mostly a side effect, and/or a vector to lure people into situations…

Come on, you can't be serious about this. Creating sophisticated web pages is massively easier than 10 or 20 years ago. Yes, HTML of plain simple text-only pages is still pretty much the same, but most users actually prefer visually fancier content with pictures and colors. Yes, companies presenting themselvses online profit of more capabilities. And yes, presenting ads is probably easier too. But if you think those…

I think he was serious, and I agree with him — and I believe that most users don’t want the majority of what JavaScript-laden pages offer over clean HTML-only pages.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#96

Post by AmericanChopper »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #60
ppod wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mistake you are making is that you are trying to answer the question of what the average user wants by looking at what you want. Developers are not representative of users.

That's a cop-out. Being a developer and a long-time computer user biases me, but also gives me a more informed perspective on what's productive and ergonomic, and what's distracting and annoying. I can name the issues I see, instead of writing off the frustration as "this computer must have viruses" or "this is just how things have to be". Bloat because of inefficient design isn't delivering any value to regular peop…

Believing that you’re more qualified to have a user experience is pretty arrogant imo. Online communities like HN are always full of puritans who hate all sorts of stuff that ordinary users often like.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#97

Post by jjeaff »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #19
jrockway wrote: post #7

I feel like many of the text-mode browsers have failed to keep up with changing web standards. We were all mad when IE was holding back the Internet, and I'm not sure we should give lynx and w3m a pass because they're geek tools. (Accessibility is an important concern, but web browsers running under a GUI system support screen readers.) https://www.brow.sh/ is a console-based browser that claims to support modern sta…

I'll be the first (EDIT: third) of six. > If all that stuff works for everyone, why did we invent new stuff? Just because? Or perhaps it wasn't really as amazing as well all remember. To better track people and push ads. It's really mostly just it. Modern web has very little to do with providing value to the end-user; any utility that's provided is mostly a side effect, and/or a vector to lure people into situations…

To say that text browsers are "anchoring" the web to those text only standards would imply that developers are making design decisions based on testing and feedback from text only browsers.

There is no way that the percentage of developers doing that isn't vanishingly small. Like 0.1% or less. I always chuckle when 1 person chimes in on a show hn post to complain that the site doesn't work well in lynx... Ya, I'll get right on that, top priority!

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#99

Post by JimDabell »

joshuamorton wrote: post #68
normalnorm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grammar of the English language does not forbid one to write in Greek, but if you choose to write in Greek only, you will compromise on a lot of people being able to understand you. The same with standards, and you are misunderstanding on purpose. If Google chooses to not support simple HTML, then they are choosing to not support countless accessibility tools, and they know it. Some blind people will have a more…

Is lynx up to spec on HTML5 ARIA attributes? My understanding is that that's how accessibility is "supposed" to be done now, but if lynx hasn't been updated in a while, it might not support those HTML5 features, and thus not be standards compliant. (edit: Someone below notes that lynx appears to incorrectly parse valid HTML5 on the google homepage, so it sounds like Lynx's lack of updates are hurting here).

> Is lynx up to spec on HTML5 ARIA attributes? My understanding is that that's how accessibility is "supposed" to be done now

No, that's not true at all and is unfortunately a common anti-pattern. Accessibility is supposed to be done by using standard HTML elements and attributes. ARIA is there to extend / fill in the blanks and to fix things when people deviate from the norm. For instance, if you have a button, you should almost always use the standard HTML and only use some other element type with an ARIA role=button if it's unavoidable. And is redundant. Best practice is still to use the semantics defined by HTML, as it always was.

Re: I am no longer able to use Google with Lynx

#100

Post by PeterisP »

amerine wrote: post #33
jedimastert wrote: post #29

> However, being a blind person, I guess I have to accept that Google doesn't care anymore. Jumping from "this isn't working on my incredibly niche browser" to "Google don't care about blind people" is completely ridiculous.

Lynx is niche now? Low user count, yeah, but it’s a standards complaint browser.

It seems that the problem is caused by the fact that Lynx isn't standards compliant anymore, and fails to interpret valid HTML5 structures correctly because they aren't valid under older standards.
Post reply on HN