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Implementing Web accessibility guidelines for nondisabled users (2016)

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Re: Implementing Web accessibility guidelines for nondisabled users (2016)

#11

Post by JadeNB »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #8
JadeNB wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem to address the point of the article, which is the (in)validity of the argument "I don't need to/shouldn't implement guidelines that help users with disabilities, because they are ineffective for/hurt users without disabilities." Proposing something else that disabled people can do (I guess that's who 'them' is?) is probably not helpful here, although it could be helpful in a thread looking for tips…

> Proposing something else that disabled people can do (I guess that's who 'them' is?) I would guess that 'them' refers to nondisabled users, who are the only group mentioned in the headline.

> I would guess that 'them' refers to nondisabled users, who are the only group mentioned in the headline.

That's certainly a logical reading, but I have even more trouble interpreting the post that way (but this ambiguity of interpretation is one more reason why drive-by comments—not yours, but the earlier one to which I was responding—are less than helpful). The question isn't whether there's any way to make browsing easier for non-disabled users; it's whether making browsing easier for disabled users makes it harder for non-disabled users (and the answer is no). In that context, it's not clear why one would want to provide advice about the browsing habits of non-disabled users.

Re: Implementing Web accessibility guidelines for nondisabled users (2016)

#12

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Certainly many things recommended for disabled users are of great benefit to non-disabled users, but there are also things that are recommended against for disabled users that the lack of can slightly hinder the usability of sites or applications.

One particular thing is that it is generally recommended against auto focusing in fields, but for sighted non-keyboard navigating users there are many applications in which setting the focus automatically in a field just makes a lot of sense.

But, as should be noted by my word choice, there is also an asymmetry to the damage accessibility considerations or lack thereof can cause - in disabled users they can make the site unusable, in non-disabled users they can make the site slightly annoying.

Re: Implementing Web accessibility guidelines for nondisabled users (2016)

#13

Post by sefrost »

beojan wrote: post #5
kevingadd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely some core accessibility features that are great for non-disabled users, though, for example having text descriptions for images (it always irritated me that alt-text didn't automatically generate a tooltip, though I sort of understand why) It's great to be able to mouse over images in Tweetdeck and (if the poster provided it) have the alt-text pop up in a tooltip so I can scan it to see if it's w…

Huh, you're right, it doesn't anymore. It used to though. I suppose it makes sense now that the web has gone from primarily being a document platform that's sometimes used to create simple applications to primarily being an application platform.

It's the title attribute on an image element that generates the tooltip. Did alt do that previously or was it always title?

MDN says not to put the same text in title and alt, as some screenreaders will read both.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/Im...

Re: Implementing Web accessibility guidelines for nondisabled users (2016)

#14

Post by kevingadd »

sefrost wrote: post #13
beojan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, you're right, it doesn't anymore. It used to though. I suppose it makes sense now that the web has gone from primarily being a document platform that's sometimes used to create simple applications to primarily being an application platform.

It's the title attribute on an image element that generates the tooltip. Did alt do that previously or was it always title? MDN says not to put the same text in title and alt, as some screenreaders will read both. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/Im...

IIRC very early on browsers would turn alt into tooltips, and then that functionality was split out into title. I understand why but I'm still bitter about it since they don't want you to use both.

Re: Implementing Web accessibility guidelines for nondisabled users (2016)

#15

Post by ivanhoe »

syrrim wrote: post #3

Unless I'm misunderstanding, this seems to be a totally correlational result. That is, they found that websites with increased accessibility tend to also be more usable. This is easily explained by assuming that developers who care about usability also tend to care about accessibility. It is more difficult to explain in a directly causative way, since many accessibility features, such as aria attributes, are complete…

There's also a 3rd category of users, the bots, and crawlers/scrapers can greatly benefit from some of those invisible accessibility features...

Re: Implementing Web accessibility guidelines for nondisabled users (2016)

#16

Post by Domenic_S »

DangitBobby wrote: post #9

My understanding was that skipping accessibility features was more about cost than anything else.

Cost, knowledge deficit of the designer &/or eng side, inertia.. there are a lot of reasons. Many html a11y features are as easy to implement as adding an attribute (but people are unaware) -- other things, like designing a product flow to be accessible, can't be fixed with engineering; they have to be redesigned.

My team at LinkedIn is trying to solve the eng side of this with a combination of automated tooling like linting & headless testing, reporting, etc., trying to make it as painless as possible for an engineer to fall into a pit of success re: a11y for web/mobile experiences.

Re: Implementing Web accessibility guidelines for nondisabled users (2016)

#17

Post by gnicholas »

Facebook's representative at an accessibility conference mentioned that 30% of their mobile users do not use the default text size. This is a huge number, considering how hard it is to get people to change defaults. Features that are ostensibly for accessibility may be useful much more broadly.

I've seen this in the usability feature that my startup created. I initially launched on HN and got great traction in the lifehack community. Then I started hearing from people with disabilities who find our tech to be indispensable as an assistive technology. Our partners have reported 40% more reading on general-purpose platforms and 70% more reading on platforms for people with ADHD or dyslexia. (You can see what the reading tech looks like here, under Enhance Readability: [1])

Not all accessibility features benefit people who do not identify as disabled. But the ones that do are a win-win (and they help make the case for accessibility more generally).

1: https://unreasonable.is/how-to-stop-working-and-be-more-prod...

Re: Implementing Web accessibility guidelines for nondisabled users (2016)

#18

Post by gnicholas »

I just published a post in the same vein: The Best Accessibility Features You've Never Heard Of. [1] I describe several examples of super helpful features that most people don't even know exist.

1: https://beelinereader.medium.com/the-best-accessibility-feat...

Re: Implementing Web accessibility guidelines for nondisabled users (2016)

#19

Post by thaumasiotes »

JadeNB wrote: post #11
thaumasiotes wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Proposing something else that disabled people can do (I guess that's who 'them' is?) I would guess that 'them' refers to nondisabled users, who are the only group mentioned in the headline.

> I would guess that 'them' refers to nondisabled users, who are the only group mentioned in the headline. That's certainly a logical reading, but I have even more trouble interpreting the post that way (but this ambiguity of interpretation is one more reason why drive-by comments—not yours, but the earlier one to which I was responding—are less than helpful). The question isn't whether there's any way to make browsi…

As I read it, the question is "do accessibility efforts do anything to help non-disabled users?", and the implied message of the response was "if the non-disabled users switch to vimium and a tiling window manager, then yes [but otherwise probably not]".
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