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Oh shit, my app is successful and I didn't think about accessibility

jacobbartlett.substack.com

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Re: Oh shit, my app is successful and I didn't think about accessibility

#41

Post by nailer »

maxloh wrote: post #14
mikece wrote: post #5

What is the real liability for a scenario like this? Is there any grace period when a new app or startup becomes far more successful far sooner than expected? I imagine A11Y isn't a massive concern when it's not certain an idea will even work; outside of California I can't imagine being legally skewered if, once you attain unexpected success, you devote A11Y resources to address this issue.

Maybe required by EU law? Not a friend of accessibility though. It requires so much work to satisfy a small base of users.

You’re being downvoted but this is true - most accessibility work seems to be generated by the accessibility industry, and is focused on short term fixes (modifying every website) rather than long-term solutions (fixing web browsers for disabled people).

Re: Oh shit, my app is successful and I didn't think about accessibility

#42

Post by codegeek »

jtriangle wrote: post #18

>1 in 6 people think your app is broken >16% of people have some kind of accessibility requirement 16% is 4 in 25 people, also no guarantee you'll be able to accommodate their specific accessibility requirement, depending on the app, and depending on the requirement. That's not to say the app shouldn't be accessible, more that, you should think about when you spend the money to implement things like this, and how tha…

There is a middle ground. There are Free widgets that you can install [0] that can add some accessibility features on top of any existing website/app. Not perfect but takes care of a lot of low hanging fruits.

https://userway.org/get/

Re: Oh shit, my app is successful and I didn't think about accessibility

#43

Post by breakfastduck »

bee_rider wrote: post #37
zooq_ai wrote: post #23

Your App is successful because you didn't spend time on useless things like a11y, i18n during the p-m-f stage. If you look at every successful product in history, they didn't focus on a11y or i18n right from the bat. Now, that it is successful, you can think about it and spend resources.

It seems like quite an indictment of the tech sector to say that success happens because accessibility is ignored.

Not really.

Solving a new problem / use case is going to help you be successful, accessibility isn't novel. It's a feature.

Re: Oh shit, my app is successful and I didn't think about accessibility

#44

Post by jmilloy »

threatofrain wrote: post #4
IncreasePosts wrote: post #2

Why have we settled upon annotating accessibility options onto a visual-first, generally high-precision/high-touch-density medium? Wouldn't it be better to just have a "low vision" version of the app, a "low touch accuracy" version of the app, etc? Then you could provide the accessibility-minded users with something customized to their needs, instead of trying to shoehorn accessibility onto a layout that might have n…

I think eventually we're heading to website as data with clients remixing the data in a way you don't expect; i.e., the final output will be a mishmash of sources.

Why do you think that? Everything I see suggests the opposite.

Re: Oh shit, my app is successful and I didn't think about accessibility

#45

Post by IncreasePosts »

PaulStatezny wrote: post #39
IncreasePosts wrote: post #2

Why have we settled upon annotating accessibility options onto a visual-first, generally high-precision/high-touch-density medium? Wouldn't it be better to just have a "low vision" version of the app, a "low touch accuracy" version of the app, etc? Then you could provide the accessibility-minded users with something customized to their needs, instead of trying to shoehorn accessibility onto a layout that might have n…

> Wouldn't it be better to just have a "low vision" version of the app, a "low touch accuracy" version of the app, etc? I find your comment interesting because it speaks to users who can see, just not well . When I think of web accessibility, I (mostly) think of users who are entirely blind. While it turns out: ~80% of screen reader users are blind. The other ~20% may be partially vision impaired, or sometimes not vi…

I was just giving examples of different types of accessibility needs, it wasn't meant to be an exhaustive list. You can imagine "no vision" as a type of "low vision", where vision = 0.0 if you'd like

Re: Oh shit, my app is successful and I didn't think about accessibility

#46

Post by SamBorick »

It's amazing how many people in this thread are seriously suggesting that these a11y features are not important. Do HN readers not understand that someday they will grow old, and their eyesight will fail, and they will find themselves increasing the font size on their devices?

Re: Oh shit, my app is successful and I didn't think about accessibility

#47

Post by bhaney »

huqedato wrote: post #38
jakey_bakey wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s fair; I might have been a little gung-ho with this introductory flavour text

Moreover, the target "audience" of an app is always specified before the design phase, in the Business Requirements Document and such and it's a defining element for the development. I've read/wrote hundreds of such documents in my career, yet I've never seen one that sets its target audience as 'everybody'.

> the target "audience" of an app is always specified before the design phase, in the Business Requirements Document

I could feel my soul leaving my body while reading this

Re: Oh shit, my app is successful and I didn't think about accessibility

#48

Post by lelandfe »

huqedato wrote: post #38
jakey_bakey wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s fair; I might have been a little gung-ho with this introductory flavour text

Moreover, the target "audience" of an app is always specified before the design phase, in the Business Requirements Document and such and it's a defining element for the development. I've read/wrote hundreds of such documents in my career, yet I've never seen one that sets its target audience as 'everybody'.

You're needlessly rebutting a jokey introduction to an article.

I'd also wager few apps have everyone in the world as active users, which is the next sentence in the article.

Re: Oh shit, my app is successful and I didn't think about accessibility

#49

Post by edent »

nsxwolf wrote: post #35
jnovek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person who uses accessibility features on his devices, this attitude is why we depend on regulation to ensure that we (disabled people) can do stuff. No company implements accessibility features out of the kindness of their heart.

If I'm putting out a free app as a single developer, I don't have the time or money to do everything. If it becomes popular, I can use metrics to improve the accessibility situation. If government regulations are going to insist I have to put that investment in day 1, I'll just take up badminton or something.

[flagged]

Re: Oh shit, my app is successful and I didn't think about accessibility

#50

Post by rocqua »

bee_rider wrote: post #37
zooq_ai wrote: post #23

Your App is successful because you didn't spend time on useless things like a11y, i18n during the p-m-f stage. If you look at every successful product in history, they didn't focus on a11y or i18n right from the bat. Now, that it is successful, you can think about it and spend resources.

It seems like quite an indictment of the tech sector to say that success happens because accessibility is ignored.

Succes requires quickly testing if something works at all. Those tests don't need accessibility to be accurate, so they don't have accessibility.

What is important is that, when you found that something works and you start profiting from it, that you make it accessible. incidentally, this is how the EU law works aswell.

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