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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

#201

Post by npteljes »

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.

Now, this is why I like to see such things regulated with law. Because then a competitor, who spares the effort to care about, say, a11y, doesn't get ahead, but is instead punished.

It's not that a11y is a bad consideration, it's that creators are badly incentivized.

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

#202

Post by serial_dev »

nsxwolf wrote: post #112
serial_dev wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this take, most app frameworks do accessibility mostly right out of the box, it's just most developers never enabled voice over in their life, so they keep modifying the UI and messing up accessibility out of ignorance. It's not that hard, and if every developer spent an afternoon looking into things, they'd realize how easy it is to get it right if the team is aware of it. I'd not mind if like develo…

If it's something like a game with a 100% from scratch engine I wrote, there's nothing at all out of the box.

Sure, but I'm talking about Compose, Swift UI, Flutter, React Native, Ionic, etc, you know like how the majority of the apps are actually written.

They all handle accessibility well, you just need to remember adding labels to your icon buttons, and you are good to go. If you don't reinvent the wheel thinking your buttons are soooo different that it needs to be rewritten from scratch, things just work.

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

#203

Post by npteljes »

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.

I honestly think that this is a good answer. If one doesn't want to do it right, they are better off doing something else.

Of course, culture is a huge factor. The US wasn't built on "regulation, or else", it was built on "if you can, do". This makes business boom, but makes other concerns, like welfare, an afterthought. And it's up to debate which system is better to exist in. People dislike the rules, until it ends up benefiting them.

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

#204

Post by swsieber »

ryandrake wrote: post #195
madeofpalk wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Companies do all sorts of (IMO insane) things to their apps that reduce their reach. Ignoring accessibility is just one of them. I remember when I was in the app-writing business, and our devs would be constantly trying to bump up the minimum OS version supported. “See here, it says that only 10% of customer devices are on OS version 10.1 and below. We must bump our minimum version to 10.2 because us developers are t…

I suspect that stuff like accessibility and minimum OS version are not independent of the profitability of a customer, so it's not necessarily insane.

For example, I'd suspect that people who stay on old iPhone's are less likely to spend money on apps. But it's a small, very unfounded suspicion.

I'd be curious to see if anything works out though in how stuff like that lines up.

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

#205

Post by dataflow »

coolliquidcode wrote: post #110
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.

You should see how ADA requirements are practically impossible or completely break design. The high contrast of font to background requirement is so extreme that most major sites and even ADA related sites fail. Things like alt text is so time consuming it would be incredibly expensive to label all the images. Facebook has long resorted to using AI descriptions. Really it shouldn't be up to the developer it should be…

> The high contrast of font to background requirement is so extreme that most major sites and even ADA related sites fail.

What's so wrong with black text on a white background that it's considered extreme?

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

#206

Post by freedomben »

darajava wrote: post #159

I built my app in Flutter without thinking about a11y at all, and had a blind user complain about a feature I updated. She had been using the app for about 6 months and she said it’s one of the most accessible apps she’s used. Flutter pretty much takes care of it all for you and the highly custom feature I built didn’t need much tweaking at all to make it work for her again.

I've heard this previously as well. Pretty compelling argument for using Flutter. If only I didn't dislike Dart so much...

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

#207

Post by austin-cheney »

nfw2 wrote: post #148
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…

It is not universally true that accessibility efforts always benefit everyone. For example, implementing ARIA markup on HTML only benefits those using assistive technology. If developers don't know how to make web services accessible, it IS expensive because it will take time to train them. Developer time is often a company's biggest expense. Moreover, not every web product is simple to make accessible even by expert…

Accessibility is not always cheap and easy. I am only saying it isn’t more expensive if you know what you are doing.

In my 15 year career as a JavaScript developer all the biggest failures were directly attributed to poor training and leadership qualifying low standards. At some point people would do themselves a huge service by admitting they are too lazy/inept to train their staff and they deliver shit as a result. I got tired of all the weak excuses so now I do something else for a living.

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

#208

Post by freedomben »

jakey_bakey wrote: post #90
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #73

I do my best to make all of my apps at least vision-impaired accessible. The last app, I figured a way to make that easier to manage, and reward use by non-disabled folks. I have a long-press help feature. If you long-press on any element in the UI, up pops a popover, with a header, and body text, pointing at the element. The popover explains that element. It's fairly easy to have a long-press gesture recognizer appl…

Say what you want about Apple, they hit the nail on the head when it comes to A11y APIs

Indeed, I'm a very big critic of Steve Jobs and Apple, but when they prioritize stuff, they can do some damn fine work, and to this day they still have some terrific a11y features. Relatedly, "I don't care about the bloody ROI" was quite an incredible moment.

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

#209

Post by godelski »

mrguyorama wrote: post #132
godelski wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Newfound dislike of cobblestone streets

God... yes

> I often wonder if Americans are especially selfish.

I can only speak to America and visiting another popular Asian country. I don't think it is uniquely American. It seems more related to people struggling and thus how much they're in their own world.

I think about this a lot because it makes it a solvable thing. But maybe I'm just hopeful. I mean either way we live in a biased internal world, and if we're going to choose, I'll be optimistic in my pessimism (that things can be solve or significantly improved). At least that framework keeps me moving forward.

But also, these experiences make me think about how important it is to offer help. Even in small cases or just see if you can lighten someone's load. There's many situations where it's little to no cost to you (in time, effort, and/or money) but mean a lot to others. Even offering often can turn someone's bad day into a good one (unfortunately sometimes after you leave). So I try to remember the little things. Because it is the little things that get in the way and make our lives difficult, so it makes sense that little things can also improve them. You don't have to be wealthy or a superstar to change the world, you just have to be a friendly neighbor.

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

#210

Post by edent »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #58
edent wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Bad analogy. Preparing food unhygienically is bad for everyone at the picnic. A more appropriate analogy is disallowing watermelon at the picnic because one person can't eat watermelon. > Please go play badminton. Love the irony of including this comment in a post about making your app inclusive

If your co-worker is allergic to peanuts, are you going to moan that you're not allowed to bring in your famous peanut brittle? No. You're going to be sensible and realise that excluding people or risking them harm isn't nice.

And, yes, I'm with Popper. The "Paradox of tolerance" is real. It's OK to tell intolerant people that they're not welcome.

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