Pete Love's received comments

Yes!

Posted on 12th March 2010 in response to Why websites shouldn't accommodate disabled users
I want to share my feeling – am sure other people with disabilities will feel the same thing….

May I suggest to change from the term, “impairments” to either term “disabilities” or “loss” because the word “impairment” is politically incorrect because it implies that disabled people are impaired in some important way. Do not want all officials and people think our physical or mental disorders/loss also are broken! We can do anything with our challenging abilities.

Again, people with disabilities do not have a disease. We are not looking for a cure but ACCEPTANCE. We do work and pay taxes like you all! Thanks for reading my comment.

Posted on 12th March 2010 in response to Why websites shouldn't accommodate disabled users
Your analogy is incredibly flawed.

Lets go with the building analogy for a second. Based on your argument, if we build a ramp beside stairs, we’ve designed the building incorrectly. Obviously this isn’t the case, and nor is it the case on the web.

I’d argue that the largest barrier to accessibility lies in inadequate standards and tools. The current crop of standards and tools were designed for websites as they existed in 1998 and haven’t moved much since then.

The dirty secret of modern front-end development on the web is that it consists of a heavily abstracted series of hacks and workarounds (have you ever looked at the source code for something like jquery? How would a screen reader even begin to interpret the UI generated out of this labarinthian code?). A lot of this stuff is near-impossible to make accessible without “building ramps alongside the stairs”.

I’d think it would be commendable for a site to offer a fully accessible version of their content instead of a half-hearted or non-effort. Many sites already specifically target mobile devices and offer print versions. I’d say there’s no shame in adding an accessible version alongside the other two until the day we’re able to build websites with robust UI that is comprehendable to accessibility tools.

In addition, with the prevalence of CMSes with WYSIWYG editors, content itself is being formatted and published poorly. Even basic semantics are ignored and alternate text is missing from images.

I think the crusade for accessibility on the web is largely mis-placed. Most competent developers are already doing as much as they can with the tools they have, but things aren’t going to get better until the tools, technology and standards improve.

Posted on 12th March 2010 in response to Why websites shouldn't accommodate disabled users
@James, i disagree wholeheartedly. You apparently don’t know a lot about accessible front-end development. Whatever method tests or browser detection jQuery is doing internally has no impact on end users, since the end result in all browsers is (for most jQuery code out there) a similar modification of the DOM. And users, whatever there devices or abilities, are affected in a similar way. Did you know that the majority of screen reader users actually use JavaScript? A lot of UI JavaScript code can be made accessible if you manage a few things right (mostly focus). For some UI JavaScript that’s a bit complex (like, say, a JavaScript+CSS slider control), you can use ARIA. Finally, there are the rare cases where making a web application accessible to some user groups might not make sense, but in my experience we tend to assume that kind of thing too often.

But i think Pete is partly wrong, too. Pete describes a “universal accessibility” approach, which has its limits. I’m all for web designers and front-end developers getting more knowledgeable regarding web accessibility. As Pete writes, you can avoid having to build an alternative version of your website if you take account of some constraints from the early stages of the site’s design. Getting the contrasts right early on, rather than having to fix it later, for instance. Using semantic HTML. Coding the layout for preserving readability when text is enlarged, etc. But if you look at web accessibility guidelines (WCAG 2.0, specifically), you can see that there is a lot of “accomodationg for this specific handicap” there. So let’s not pretend that every single accessibility improvement has benefits for every user out there, because it’s wrong. Some may have broad benefits (good contrast is better for everybody, semantic HTML has SEO benefits, etc.), while others are more specific.

Posted on 13th March 2010 in response to Why websites shouldn't accommodate disabled users
I’m blind, and I don’t honestly care what terminology you use for it. Several decades of inventing a kind of Newspeak for disabilities hasn’t helped me see any better, and hasn’t had any discernible effect on public attitudes, sadly.

Ways of making jquery accessible turn up regularly in mny news feeds, so there must be a way.

For blind user read search engine. Can search engines read the fancy front end of your site? Bad for business, not pandering to the search engines.

The technology I use, particularly the screen reader, has developed ways of dealing with these fancy front ends. Note WAI ARIA as a way of making some previously inaccessible content more accessible. So I’ll be ready when web designers start to implement this. There isn’t much evidence of it yet. Yahoo, of all people, have made quite an effort in this, after many years of having a really bad reputation for accessibility.

Please forget completely any idea of an “accessible version” of your site. If you can’t come up with a proper design in the first place, how good is your ‘accessible’ version going to be anyway? Surely the time to build accessibility into a site is at the stage where you write the specification – before you put the stairs in, as it were.

Tesco had plenty of problems over this, but now at last seem to have come up with a site that pretty well everyone can use. They had to come out of their ivory tower and actually consult people, but in the long run the treatment worked, it seems. Their old ‘accessible’ site was clunky, chronically out of date, and didn’t include features such as special offers. This is again like sending people with disabilities round the back with the coal.

There is a problem with many of the WYSIWIG tools people use, I agree – there’s a cruel irony to this if you really get what you see, as I often do. Is it beyond the wit of humankind to design powerful tools that give you standards-compliant code? I can only talk about a brief experience throwing together web pages with Frontpage Express in minutes, then spending all week editing them so taht they got through the W3C validator. Well, it was a kind of learning experience!

Posted on 13th March 2010 in response to Why websites shouldn't accommodate disabled users
@ deafbowti
Your comments on the use of the word “impairment” as opposed to “disabilities” and “loss” is really interesting. I agree that the specific terms that are used to describe conditions influences people’s perception of them, and I have to say I sometimes find it hard to gauge what terms are the least problematic to use.

@ James
You say “Based on your argument, if we build a ramp beside stairs, we’ve designed the building incorrectly. Obviously this isn’t the case..”

Actually it is the case. If you build both a ramp and stairs, you are unnecessarily dividing people into groups that can use stairs and those that can’t, not to mention constructing two means to the same end, where one (the stairs) has no significant benefits to its users over the other. I’d say that was the very essence of bad design. Why not build just a ramp that everyone can use?

Actually the standards for building accessible websites have moved on since 1998. There has been continual debate around accessibility since then, and the WCAG 2 guidelines published in late 2008 are a definite step forward.

As Florent V. rightly points out, modern screen readers are quite capable of interpreting javascript. That’s not to say that there aren’t numerous challenges in writing javascript that creates UIs that screen readers can navigate with ease (and most of us get it wrong sometimes) but there is absolutely nothing inherently inaccessible about using javascript.

You’re right that the code produced by many WYSIWYG editors is semantically flawed, but these days some, such as CK Editor, are much better in this respect.

@ Florent V.
Thanks for your comments. I think you’re right – there are some WCAG 2 guidelines that benefit users with very specific conditions, and they have to be implemented consciously with those users in mind. I don’t think that this necessarily goes against the principle of ‘universal’ or ‘inclusive’ design though, as most of these guidelines can be implemented without any adverse effect on other users. A visible ‘skip navigation’ link for example is primarily of benefit to users who navigate via the keyboard rather than a mouse, but its presence on the page has no adverse effects for mouse users.

But of course, addressing all of these specific issues is time consuming, and requires considerable expertise and insight. Sometimes (in fact most times) time and budget restrictions don’t allow us to be as thorough as we’d like to be, in which case we have to be pragmatic and prioritise those condition-specific guidelines that we implement, based on our knowledge of our target audience.

@ vip_uc
Thanks for your comments. I totally agree that providing an ‘accessible’ version of a site is an indication of bad design. A properly designed site shouldn’t need an alternative version.

Regarding WAI ARIA – I think that awareness of the challenges involved in writing fully accessible javascript-based interfaces is beginning to pick up momentum. In the past I think many designers (myself included) have concentrated on the principle of progressive enhancement, believing that those users with screen readers will be experiencing the non-javascript-enhanced versions of our sites. But screen reader technology has moved on, and we must certainly consider how our javascript-enhanced interfaces will be interpreted by screen readers, not just web browsers, to ensure that the ‘enhancements’ we make aren’t actually putting up more barriers for some people.

Posted on 16th March 2010 in response to Why websites shouldn't accommodate disabled users
Incase you’ve not already heard about it, the proposed new Digital Equality Bill (which is being debated in Parliament today) contains a clause that could mean entire websites are forced off the internet because a disabled person says they are not accessible.

You can read more here:
http://www.out-law.com/page-10893

Posted on 6th April 2010 in response to Why websites shouldn't accommodate disabled users
Hello All,

My apologies for what may seem for relatively inane comments in comparison to those above.

I listened this week to a debate on radio about this very topic, a lady guest on the show, who was blind, stated that sales assistants in computer shops had very little (if any) knowledge that they could provide on advising upon screen readers and others aids for the use of the internet.

Can I ask you good people, that if the government has introduced legislation to ensure disabled access to any retail building, then why arn’t they ensuring that the products are just as accessible!

For these multi million pound companies how difficult is it for them to train upon these subjects!

Posted on 11th February 2011 in response to Why websites shouldn't accommodate disabled users
I get what you are saying. Design sites that work well for all users without having to double up on functionality, access points etc..

I must say that your page title is severely flawed. While you may find it witty with the heading you have, it actually contradicts your article.

More work and emphasis needs to be given to the accessible website development world.

You’re right in saying good planning, structure, text-links, contrast etc… are a great way to start. But if you think that’s the end of it, try surfing the web blindfolded for a few days.

Posted on 14th February 2011 in response to Why websites shouldn't accommodate disabled users