Accessibility Issues Are Often Usability Issues

verdverm

I've been wondering how all the people who've decided not using capital letters between sentences is cool, how they think about accessibility. Do they recognize (1) it disadvantages people with reading / sight disabilities (2) it makes it hard for all humans to parse the boundaries of sentences, ergo thoughts?

janadiamond

That’s a good point. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation can all affect readability. A lot of modern design trends assume perfect reading conditions and typical visual processing. When those assumptions break, accessibility issues start showing up very quickly.

asadotzler

Accessibility issues are always usability issues if you're not a jerk who believes it's okay to not consider usability for about a quarter of the population. Having said that, yes, tending to the needs of disabled people absolutely does help identify design shortcomings and making software better for disabled people often benefits far more users than than the targeted group. This is called the "curb cut effect" or simply "curb cuts" in the industry because like sidewalk curb cuts made for wheel chairs, the improvement was actually a win for everyone from jogger to parents with strollers, to rolling luggage, delivery people with hand trucks, etc. etc. When we make things better for one group, often many groups benefit so designing with everyone in mind, and not just people like you, is always worthwhile.

janadiamond

That curb cut example is a great example of the pattern. Improvements aimed at a specific accessibility need often end up benefiting more people than expected. While thinking about this, I realized that accessibility often acts like a kind of stress test for design assumptions. If something only works under ideal conditions, accessibility issues tend to surface those weaknesses very quickly. (I wish I'd known that when I was a tester!)

recursivedoubts

interesting related aside: I'm comparing HTML/hypermedia w/MCP as an agentic protocol and adding accessibility information made using HTML-based APIs much easier some agents

munk-a

There isn't one perfect way to design things since our needs are different. A relative of mine has failing eyesight and requires high contrast - while I am quite sensitive to bright lights and need to dim my screens beyond what most people find workable. The best lesson in accessibility to learn is that our societal needs are complex and the various standards exist for good reason. If you want to create a complex and particular design using CSS that is fine but keep the tagging underlying that design compatible with screen-readers and allow easy overriding of styling. One of the most frustrating things for accessibility is advertising since it specifically goes to lengths to use obfuscated class names (to avoid ad-blocks) and bright colors (often via images/videos that contain embedded text). At some point I really do hope we realize just how expensive advertising is and how many externalized costs it forces on us all.

moose44

This entire thread is ai slop.

couchdive

Is it just me? or does this image and all the links not have the most basic element of accessibility. Image and Link naming