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3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

fionatg.com

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Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#141

Post by dllthomas »

greenyoda wrote: post #105
dominicgs wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A terrible example of relying on colour includes the braille at some Melbourne train stations[1]. It appears that someone directly translated the phrase "Press green button" rather than using left or right. [1] http://wongm.com/2014/06/asking-vision-impaired-to-push-gree...

And it's not just blind people who can't differentiate between red and green. A significant percentage of the population has red-green color blindness.

Yes, but forgetting that is a less glaring (and therefore less amusing) error than writing "press the green button" in braille...

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#142

Post by unreal37 »

autokad wrote: post #100

"3% browse with IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former? So why do we think it is perfectly acceptable to spend time ensuring that our websites work in IE9, but not that you can navigate them with a keyboard?" if she is so concerned about making websites accessible for those with impairments, why in the heck did she choose that font?!? 2nd, you are really twisting things. first you take ALL…

The original Microsoft research paper she pulls the number "14%" from uses questions like "do you have a visual impairment?" to determine disability. So if you wear glasses or contacts, you're disabled apparently.

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#143

Post by wfjackson »

joblessjunkie wrote: post #32

I have poor vision. This website uses a herd-to-read font and disables pinch-to-zoom (an essential feature) on my iPad.

Not just that but it's abusing statistics.

StatCounter attempts to measure browsing volume, not people using a particular browser.

Net Applications attempts to measure people using a browser, so IE9's reported share is three times higher, around 9%.

As an analogy, take the toothpaste market with only two players. Lets say 30% of people use Colgate and 70% use Crest. But for some reason the first group uses more toothpaste, so 60% of toothpaste sold in the market is Colgate and 40% is Crest.

Now, which one has a higher "marketshare"? Crest or Colgate?

It's funny how everyone gets so confused about this.

Anyway, Net Applications is the more apt comparison here because she's attempting to compare people having a disability, not the amount of browsing done by such people.

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#144

Post by judk »

shutupalready wrote: post #73
leorocky wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This website is even difficult to read on a regular desktop browser (too wide, downvoted comments increasingly impossible to read causing eye strain). I recommend using your own content script with Chrome. This may not help on your iPad but on Android you can use Firefox with your own userscript. It's the only way I can tolerate it. It would probably take a competent someone a few hours to fix the readability issues…

joblessjunkie means the original article's site. Pinch-to-zoom works fine on HackerNews on an iPad, and the HackerNews font is nothing unusual. Regarding HN being too wide, why don't you narrow your browser window? Personally, I like the fact the traditional web design in which HN adjusts the line to screen width rather than imposing a width.

HN doesn't reflow/wrap text to window size on Android Chrome or Firefox. Only the pre-KitKat "Browser" works on HN.

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#145

Post by wfjackson »

Alupis wrote: post #109
shutupalready wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

joblessjunkie means the original article's site. Pinch-to-zoom works fine on HackerNews on an iPad, and the HackerNews font is nothing unusual. Regarding HN being too wide, why don't you narrow your browser window? Personally, I like the fact the traditional web design in which HN adjusts the line to screen width rather than imposing a width.

The Original article seems to mis-quote browser marketshare. They have IE10 listed as 3% of the market and "Other" as 36%? And all the IE's combined for 19% market share? Everything I've seen (except the original article) list the IE's at a combined market share somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-70%., with IE8 still having a dominant 15-20%.

See my other comment for the reason for discrepancy.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7883973

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#146

Post by judk »

sp332 wrote: post #120
pmontra wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not built-in but the Stylish extension does that.

Claudius is being sarcastic. http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.php?title=UserContent.css

Chrome however is deprecating this feature. Stylish will be required.

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#147

Post by wmeredith »

ColinDabritz wrote: post #7

As a side note, designing well for disabilities often translates to better design as well. Those alternate text labels and better layout for screen readers can make your site easier for the googlebot to read. You can find navigation and flow issues. Buttons that are hard to click are harder for everyone to click, even if some can manage. Or those buttons are really hard for everyone on tablets to hit because they are…

This is such an important point for non-tech or non-design folks to understand. Accessible content-focused design is easy to use. It's also easy to code and easy to for search engines to crawl, making it easy to promote and share.

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#148

Post by judk »

steven2012 wrote: post #131
fionatg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, it sort of re-inforces my point that when I was designing that site I didn't really think about it. I don't have to be an accessibility expert to discuss the fact that developers don't tend to create accessible sites!

It doesn't reinforce your point, it makes you look like a hypocrite.

It is an admission of the problem and a plea for help.

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#149

Post by jiggy2011 »

I imagine the main reason is that catering to disabilities is much much more expensive when you consider the variety of disabilities that there are and how much they differ in severity and how they will affect different individuals in different ways.

I also guess that people with more severe disabilities are less likely to control large corporate or personal budgets than the general population and those that do are either very good at working around their disability of simply have others to who do it for them.

It's also possible that making a site easier to use for somebody with one disability might have the effect of making it worse for a person with a different disability.

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#150

Post by judk »

speg wrote: post #26
ColinDabritz wrote: post #7

As a side note, designing well for disabilities often translates to better design as well. Those alternate text labels and better layout for screen readers can make your site easier for the googlebot to read. You can find navigation and flow issues. Buttons that are hard to click are harder for everyone to click, even if some can manage. Or those buttons are really hard for everyone on tablets to hit because they are…

This happens in the real world too, aka the sidewalk effect. The cutouts in the sidewalk for wheelchairs are now used by everyone else too for their: strollers, bikes, shopping carts, and anyone else who doesn't want to raise their foot an extra couple of inches.

Indeed:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design

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