Accessibility is not your problem? (Full Version)

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Mojo -> Accessibility is not your problem? (7/13/2007 12:28:52)

Here is an interesting read by a known accessibility expert.

"If a browser or adaptive technology can or should handle an accessibility issue, I won’t."
-- Joe Clark

http://joeclark.org/appearances/atmedia2007/

Font Resizing -
quote:

For example, we’re constantly told not to use pixels as a unit to size text. Or we’re told that pixels are an absolute unit and you must only use relative units.

Pixels are a relative unit by spec, full stop. You can use them if you want, full stop. You can use any unit for any purpose. You are merely suggesting the font size. It’s up to the browser or screen magnifier or whatever to pick the real size.






Donkey -> RE: Accessibility is not your problem? (7/13/2007 13:15:13)

Missing a "when"?

quote:

The title of this presentation is “When accessibility is not your problem” – in other words, the specific limited edge cases in which you, as a content author, do not have to worry about accessibility. I had four people in London telling me they got the impression, or feared others would get the impression, that I am claiming accessibility is not your problem. That is nonsense, of course.

Interesting read though especially the bit about background/foreground colour combinations.



jaybee -> WHEN Accessibility is not your problem? (7/13/2007 13:48:19)

The WHEN is the entire crux of the matter. If you're going to post a thread it should be an accurate post. The title of this is very misleading.



womble -> RE: WHEN Accessibility is not your problem? (7/13/2007 14:38:43)

Interesting debate about the whole text resizing thing on there. Reminds me of the very heated debate at last year's GITP where Patrick Lauke and Bruce Lawson did an excellent presentation on the realities of accessible design (thought I'd better mention I'd actually met them as Tail hasn't reminded us she did recently [;)]). There was a very interesting debate about whether as developers we should be doing all the work on accessibility when by doing so we're to a certain extent letting the user-agent shortcomings off the hook. Personally I tend to feel that it's the end user that's the important one, and who does what shouldn't be their problem. It's argued that while ever developers continue to make up for the short-comings of user-agents, there's no incentive for them to improve.

Interesting to note that Joe Clark reckons that everything but ZoomText 9 as far as screen magnification is concerned makes everything fuzzy. My Dolphin LunarPlus certainly doesn't. Fair enough a lot of the cheaper screen magnifiers do, but the lack of fuzziness was one of the reasons I went for the LunarPlus.



Mojo -> RE: WHEN Accessibility is not your problem? (7/13/2007 14:54:51)

quote:

If you're going to post a thread it should be an accurate post. The title of this is very misleading.


Nice Jaybee. Real classy. This is NOT your forum.

My title was accurate - look at the end of the title. See that little character thingy? It's called a question mark. It causes the title to make complete sense. I simply didn't want to copy the original title. I thought I was add some variety to the post.






womble -> RE: WHEN Accessibility is not your problem? (7/13/2007 14:58:01)

quote:

I know the accessibility forum is a bit on the Nazi side, but I didn't know exactly how lost it was until now.


Mojo, with all due respect, the title could be misleading to those who don't know a lot about the accessibility debate, and maybe Jaybee didn't explain herself in any depth but I'm guessing she was on her way out of the door when she posted that as I know she's going away for a few days, but to label the accessibility forum as "a bit on the Nazi side" is also very misleading and very provocative. <edit>And then to edit that out!</edit>

There's always been a healthy air of debate in the accessibility forum over the best way to achieve accessibility and the best techniques to use, as there is on the other forums on Outfront. If you want somewhere where views on accessibility are very strongly and forcefully put across, and where opposing views rapidly turn into flame wars on occasions (I got stuck in the middle of one after making what I thought was a non-controversial post about an accessibility icon) try somewhere like the Accessify forums. That's not to say that it's a bad place - there are some real accessibility experts there who we can all learn a lot from, but there are some very strongly held views.

Oufront always has been, and remains to be a great place to debate things.



Mojo -> RE: WHEN Accessibility is not your problem? (7/13/2007 15:13:13)

I don't see anything wrong with the title. It is a fair question. It was meant to spark discussion about the issues. I didn't expect one moderator to act in a rude manner to another mod. Especially over something a lame as the title of the article.



mtfm -> RE: Accessibility is not your problem? (7/13/2007 15:21:43)

Interesting article. I especially liked the following:

quote:

Whoever visits your site has ultimate control over how it looks, even if they don’t know that or they’re using a broken browser.


Yeah, like 90% of the end users.

If you want your site to work and to be successful, you have to work around cerain things such as the fact that most people either don't have the appropriate tools or don't know how to use the tools they have.


Interesting too to notye the difference between him and most other accessibility experts-- instead of the normal "we should make it accessible to all if it kills us," he's saying "let it be inaccessible, it will take care of itself." Kind of a free market type thing.


Both sides of this particular argument are utopian dreamers, but it's an interesting mixture to be sure!



womble -> RE: Accessibility is not your problem? (7/14/2007 5:36:38)


quote:

ORIGINAL: mtfm

Interesting article. I especially liked the following:

quote:

Whoever visits your site has ultimate control over how it looks, even if they don’t know that or they’re using a broken browser.


Yeah, like 90% of the end users.

If you want your site to work and to be successful, you have to work around cerain things such as the fact that most people either don't have the appropriate tools or don't know how to use the tools they have.


That's interesting because that was one of the things that came up at last year's Geek in the Park event. A lot of the people there, though they were pro-accessibility, argued that users had a responsibility to know how to use the software. I can agree with that to a point, but the fact is that those same 90% of users who don't know they're using a broken browser haven't the faintest clue on how to change any settings.

Take my mum (someone, please! [:D]) - expects all the info to be immediately visible (a good argument for keeping stuff above the fold and making sure stuff that's navigation, looks like navigation), when a site doesn't behave quite how she expects it to blames "the stupid computer", and gets easily bored with a site if it doesn't seem to instantly offer what she needs. The fact is she's not a regular internet user (usually only uses it while I'm around because she's frightened of "breaking something"), her eyesight isn't as good as it once was, but she doesn't come under the category of "disabled", and she's no idea what a screen magnifier or a screen reader is (except that she knows I sometimes use them but she's no idea really how they work. Even though she uses Firefox (because I removed her IE icon [:D]) she's no idea how to resize text, and though I've shown her the Ctrl/scroll wheel trick, she forgets that between browsing sessions.

So, a lot of the web remains "inaccessible" to her. Yes, she may be missing out on stuff because she doesn't stick around to explore what sites have any further, and probably if she used the web enough to be interested enough to learn more about text resizing and stuff, then she'd get somewhere quicker, but the sites that don't make sure their text's a readable size generally for a variety of people miss out because she's not going to stick around long enough to investigate them further.

At the heart of accessibility is "access for all", whether that's due to disability, different hardware, different software, or different needs, and the original intention for the web was that it would be available and accessible to all, not just those with the technological know-how. That's why I believe we should take accessibility seriously and take up the slack where the user-agents haven't yet caught up and got their act together. At the end of the day we all put sites on the web for people to visit them, whether it's to provide information or entertainment or to make money, and if we don't make sure our sites are as accessible as they can be, we're severely limiting our audience.



BobbyDouglas -> RE: Accessibility is not your problem? (7/14/2007 12:53:09)

It would be interesting to see what programs like JAWS have been doing to correct some of the common tasks that accessibility web designers do on a regular basis.

I hope more people begin to go after the browsers, or the tools used for accessibility, as opposed to the person who created the page. This is a great quote:

quote:

Browsers should do all of the following
* Tell you about font resizing when you start up the browser the first time.
* Always give you buttons on a toolbar.
* Teach you the keyboard equivalents.
* Give you new sets of colour combinations you can use.
* Always fit content to the window width by default.
* Give you zoom layouts.

Because why? Because none of that is your problem.


I especially like the "Give you new sets of colour combinations you can use." This would be huge if there was a way to completely adjust the color that displays when the page renders.



womble -> RE: Accessibility is not your problem? (7/14/2007 15:19:09)


quote:

ORIGINAL: BobbyDouglas

quote:

Browsers should do all of the following
* Always give you buttons on a toolbar.

Because why? Because none of that is your problem.



Probably the worst offender for that at present's IE7* - hiding the entire menu bar by default? Really smart move! [:@]

*Disclaimer: only used on my spare machine for testing purposes. [;)]



Tailslide -> RE: Accessibility is not your problem? (7/16/2007 13:19:59)

Edit: removed a long post about "reasonableness" in web design with reference to accessibility.

What that article does not say is that we should forget about accessibility and let market forces rule the day.

What it does say is that we as designers/developers shouldn't bear sole responsibility for accessibility - which I think is to a large extent true. Browser manufacturers could easily add big text/small text icons as standard to the toolbar. I've stopped adding font size increaser scripts to my sites in favour of a brief explanation in the accessibility statement about how to use the browser to do it.

The reality is that there are some things that SHOULD be up to browsers but at the moment cannot be left to them because they would fail and the user would suffer. Using PX for font sizing is the classic example - there are a few others.

I'm not one of those fanatic Opera fans however the sheer range of user options available in that browser should be a target for other browsers - background colour changers etc etc decent page zoom (unlike IE7's attempt).

I also believe that the user bears a responsibility to have a basic understanding of how their browsers work - especially if they have a special requirement of them such as larger fonts. People using ANY equipment of ANY kind should understand the basics of it's use (how to put oil in a car, how to put powder in a washing machine). Not easy for someone's elderly relative perhaps, but still true. Which takes us back to browser manufacturers making it easier for people to understand what's going on.

So it should be a combination. Us lot not putting deliberate barriers up, browser manufacturers doing their bit and users having some basic operating knowledge.



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