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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

#131

Post by kriops »

austin-cheney wrote: post #109

The universal good, and unappreciated reality, about accessibility is that it benefits everyone. Wheelchair ramps aren’t limited to wheelchairs. I have above average hearing despite my advancing age and I choose to apply subtitles to digital movies about half the time because it provides me a better more enriching experience. Solving for color contrast limitations benefits everyone even when people have perfect visio…

In what world is cost not a good argument?

In fact, assume cost is not a good argument – then why should it even be legal to compile programs that aren’t universally accessible? It’s always beneficial, and just a matter of cost after all.

Or are you perhaps being completely one-sided and unreasonable?

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

#132

Post by mrguyorama »

godelski wrote: post #124
matsemann wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially related, but it's a bit interesting to see how many men get "radicalized" after being on paternity leave and pushing a stroller around. I'm volunteering on a board for an organization that (among other things) works for more accessible streets (more from an angle of less car dependence though), and we get lots of new members with this revelation. Suddenly they hate getting from point A to B; "It's just a…

My partner had to use a wheelchair for awhile and it can still be useful (difficulties walking), and boy has it caused a strong desire to just keep a spare bag of concrete and a bucket in my trunk. Or even just metal shims. I've definitely got the same experience of "why is everything so __needlessly__ difficult?" When many could be solved or significantly eased with just a few dollars worth of materials. > Why do I…

A friend of mine from college has a form of dwarfism that gives him extremely limited walking ability. I have spent many hours pushing his wheelchair around college and now around towns. Newfound dislike of cobblestone streets lol.

During one busy winter, he had to drive his mobility scooter to class in the early morning after a huge storm. The "ramp" to get from the sidewalk to the street to go where he needed to go was covered in snow and he couldn't push through. He asked the groundskeeper/janitor/maintenance guy who was shoveling nearby if he could clear it.

"Not my job"

I often wonder if Americans are especially selfish. There is this disgusting undercurrent of greed and "fuck you got mine" in our culture, and it harms everything we interact with. Think about the parking lot of your nearest grocery store, and how many carts have just been left in parking spots by people who think their shit doesn't stink.

I wonder how many of those people run local businesses or government departments.

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

#133

Post by recursivecaveat »

nailer wrote: post #41
maxloh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Are web browsers not accessible by default? If you make everything out of the core primitives they provide: lists, paragraphs, buttons, forms, etc, a screen reader will have no problem, and reader mode can let the user tweak it. It's only when people reconstruct primitives that assistive technology breaks. I don't see how you can fix that at the browser level except by taking away all the toys and breaking 99% of the web.

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

#134

Post by madeofpalk »

huqedato wrote: post #9

I would never agree with this statement of the author: "You won’t stop until everybody is using your app." Why ? All the apps I ever build (or participate in their development) where targeted to the fit the most, without sacrificing the business requirements or other important/critical aspects of the app. Otherwise will end-up with an unusable product.

I don't know - I'm always amused at how companies will try all sorts of growth hacks to eke out an extra 1% of DAU or whatever, but won't prioritise building products for human beings.

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

#135

Post by tomrod »

rmbyrro wrote: post #130
mrguyorama wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notably, none of this matters if you aren't an entitled jerk and make accessibility features an option !! There's been a new trend in modern videogames to show you a screen with a few accessibility options before the game even finishes starting. I am not disabled, and yet often feel like I benefit from some options or others. Stop pretending you know better than your customers/users/visitors. Let them make the choice…

Hey bro, it's unnecessary to call people jerks. Assume they're ignorant at worse, or really incapable of juggling all plates. Running a small software shop, especially a startup, is extremelly hard and stressful. You're constantly struggling to survive financially. To a lot of folks, this alone already takes up everything they have to give.

I say this with full understanding of the situation you are describing: ignoring accessibility is not a reasonable cost saving measure, to a degree is immoral, and ignores that almost everyone will be temporary or permanently in need of accessibility at some point.

Not every object needs accessibility - a flashlight might not need braille - but this should be the absolute exception that proves a business is viable in its delivery.

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

#136

Post by mrguyorama »

zer00eyz wrote: post #32

The very community who needs this, is inclined to ask first sue second. The ADA exists and is a powerful law. If you are willing to put in the work, generally you're going to get a pass. I wrote a bunch of accessibility guides (with a lawyer looking over my shoulder) around 2000 for a F500. I have since worked with blind users to add accessibility to apps. If someone is asking, and you can help them do it. You will h…

Indeed. You can literally spend as little effort as physically possible working on accessibility, and you will still be doing better than way too many businesses, and people with disabilities will still give you props for your literal minimal compliance.

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

#137

Post by aftbit »

zer00eyz wrote: post #32

The very community who needs this, is inclined to ask first sue second. The ADA exists and is a powerful law. If you are willing to put in the work, generally you're going to get a pass. I wrote a bunch of accessibility guides (with a lawyer looking over my shoulder) around 2000 for a F500. I have since worked with blind users to add accessibility to apps. If someone is asking, and you can help them do it. You will h…

Yeah for a decent period of time, the accessibility of Dropbox's desktop app was entirely dependent on one passionate blind forum user who called us out (politely!) every time we messed something up. It was a great, productive relationship that led to us continuing to release test builds on the forums for longer than we would otherwise have done so.

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

#138

Post by zymhan »

kriops wrote: post #131
austin-cheney wrote: post #109

The universal good, and unappreciated reality, about accessibility is that it benefits everyone. Wheelchair ramps aren’t limited to wheelchairs. I have above average hearing despite my advancing age and I choose to apply subtitles to digital movies about half the time because it provides me a better more enriching experience. Solving for color contrast limitations benefits everyone even when people have perfect visio…

In what world is cost not a good argument? In fact, assume cost is not a good argument – then why should it even be legal to compile programs that aren’t universally accessible? It’s always beneficial, and just a matter of cost after all. Or are you perhaps being completely one-sided and unreasonable?

You're shoving the strawman down the slippery slope. That is not an honest/genuine question.

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

#139

Post by mcguire »

seanwilson wrote: post #53

Nice practical article. Accessibility is really important, but one of my pet peeves is when people call developers lazy for not making apps accessible by default. There really is a lot of concepts to learn, conflicting priorities, and tools to get familiar with, on top of making the business case to do it. Most developers and designers I've worked aren't that familiar with WCAG rules either. By the way, the blue on y…

Most developers and designers are unfamiliar with a major portion of their jobs.

That says quite a bit about professionalism in the software development field.

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

#140

Post by mardifoufs »

austin-cheney wrote: post #109

The universal good, and unappreciated reality, about accessibility is that it benefits everyone. Wheelchair ramps aren’t limited to wheelchairs. I have above average hearing despite my advancing age and I choose to apply subtitles to digital movies about half the time because it provides me a better more enriching experience. Solving for color contrast limitations benefits everyone even when people have perfect visio…

I don't get the last part of your comment. They can know what they are doing but the costs might be a problem. There are added costs to supporting accessibility, that's just a fact. No level of competency would make adding accessibility features not more expensive. I can bet you that whatever code you've ever written isn't fully accessible. That's impossible, as accessibility is a spectrum.

The question is which features are a must and a bare minimum and which of them are not. If your job doesn't care about accessibility (which is bad, don't get me wrong) and doesn't pay you for adding say, colorblindness support or TTS, that has nothing to do with being competent.

Accessibility is also in huge part related to cultural context. Sure, blind people and people in wheelchairs exist everywhere, but as an example where I'm from literacy is not universal. People can read for the most part but some have a very hard time reading, and TTS doesn't solve the issue in my experience. Does your website support that? Does it support a lot of visual elements/videos instead of text? Or a simplified version of the language? Does it make you incompetent, and does it make sense to add a completely different UI mode for them? That's what I mean with it being a spectrum.

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