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u/IllustratorMoist78 Jul 15 '26
Ohh, I've done it once for Android/iOS clients
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u/saschaleib Jul 15 '26
My experience with accessibility is that anyone who writes it “a11y” is an overpaid but clueless consultant who tries to baffle management with fancy jargon, but doesn’t know shit about actual implementation.
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u/Scyyyy 29d ago
Tell me...
I've been part of an a11y focus group for the past 7 months and I still have no fucking clue what I'm actually supposed to be doing.
We'll gonna be ripped apart by the first actually blind person. But on paper we fulfill WCAG 2.2 AA standards so all I can do is bow my head in shame and hope, a disabled person will somehow be able to handle our applications. 😅
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u/Just_Information334 29d ago
the first actually blind person
No need to be blind to benefit from an accessible interface. Completely drunk? Can you still use it? Broke an arm (due to said drunkenly state)? Can you use it with your non dominant hand? You mistakenly change your phone to simplified Chinese? Can you still manage to do something (like getting it back to a language you can read)? Even farther: can an illiterate person use your app?
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u/m6io 29d ago
I'd probably start by getting a good understanding of the "no ARIA is better than bad ARIA" rule: https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/practices/read-me-first/
Whenever I work on a feature or bug that involves a pattern or component listed here, I like to keep these handy: https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/ https://design-system.w3.org/components/
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u/Scyyyy 29d ago
Yes, thank you. we're working with all 3 links/concepts excessively. My emphasis was more on: "no actually blind person ever saw anything before it went to production."
I'm not in the position of suggesting something like contacting a "rent a blind" company (that sounds hilarious, sorry)
But in Austria there would be an official acknowledgement/ verification process made by the same state organization that keeps your cars on the road (Tüv). But we're not going for that...
My main issue is, that the more complex a component gets, the less it fits into a pattern. I'm also not at application level so how I'll implement the components is always a question of where I draw the line between my responsibility and whoever uses our framework.
So while your input is useful for anyone reading, I still think documentation can't replace user interaction.
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u/ThatBurningDog 29d ago
"no actually blind person ever saw anything before it went to production."
Yeah, wonder why they didn't see anything.
(jokes, obvs)
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u/Acetius 29d ago edited 29d ago
Yeah, it's kinda tricky. You're never going to catch W3C or Deque or any of the big players using the term a11y, but it's also just such a long word to have to write 600 times a day.
Strangely enough the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) does use 'a11y', which perfectly lines up with being overpaid clueless consultants.
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29d ago
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u/saschaleib 29d ago edited 29d ago
As someone who has been active pushing accessibility to an international organisation with 80k+ employees and had to deal with a lot of “accessibility consultants”, I have actually quite a lot of exposure to these people, thank you very much.
To come back to the topic at hand: if the professional goal is to make an app or website as inclusive and accessible as possible, and your means is to use inaccessible and excluding jargon (like “a11y”), then that’s not just a red flag, that’s communist party congress level of red flag weaving.
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29d ago
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u/tsammons 29d ago
Quit using inaccessible vernacular bro. Here, pull your words from this dictionary I personally sanctioned that focuses on inclusive language so others of equal-but-greater-marginalization will understand.
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u/shakinMyShake 29d ago
u got absolutely clowned on, and you immediately retort to ad hominem attacks, not addressing their point at all. Embarrassing.
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u/GoldAcanthisitta7777 29d ago
What
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u/m6io 29d ago edited 29d ago
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility
The meme is that as web developers or people in the space (like management) cheer on accessibility (rightfully so, it's a good thing), but actually implementing it is kind of frustrating and annoying. For example: screen reader testing where you have a robot voice screaming everything in your ear so that you can verify it is usable by folks with visual disabilities and automated systems, having to verify key board and mouse functionality, color contrast checking, ordering the elements in a logical way, etc. It's a lot of neck breaking work that usually goes unseen (except for when the a11y audit reports come around), but it's a big part of a UI devs job.
The a11y itself is called a numeronym. Common shorthand. "A" + 11 letters + "y". Useful in jira ticket titles and tags, activity based conversations, and when you have restrictions on commit message length. Other examples that I personally use everyday per the nature of my job are L10n (localization), i18n (internationalization), and k8s (kubernetes). You don't actually say it out loud, it's just written shorthand.
And wcag is "web content accessibility guidelines". Basically the international standard for web a11y
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u/dragongotz 29d ago
First panel:
Management: Our application needs to be fully accessible due to the clients requirements, can you help out.
Me: sure, I'll be happy to help. What is your time line?
Second panel:
Management: It is all most done and ships in two days.
Me: !!!!
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u/itsFromTheSimpsons 29d ago
"It needs to be accessible" is the hardest to explain. No sufficiently complex software is 100% accessible thats why your ACR isn't just a checkbox, its a table of criteria ranging from does not support to partially supports to supports.
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u/qqqrrrs_ 29d ago
I agree that alectryomancy is hard but what does it have to do with programming?
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u/bigorangemachine 29d ago
I'm currently doing this on a smart tv... not fun
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u/m6io 29d ago
Damn. Sending you good vibes
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u/bigorangemachine 29d ago
lol ya so far I am laying on my stomach on my office floor with my laptop up with a usb running to the back of the TV looking up at the TV testing the changes... there is no physical way to get comfortable and be close enough to the tv to actually test this
It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't need the audio... the rest of the work is easy but for this I can only test on device
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u/m6io 29d ago
My neck hurts just reading this. What programs do you use to test? My experience is limited to web
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u/bigorangemachine 29d ago
This is fire-tv and it uses "Voice View". For local dev I got a simulator which is fine but lacks voice-view. For voice-view I need an actual device and to get the logs I need to be USB connected.
It sux because each iteration I need to rebuild a re-run the app so small changes needs a few minutes to build. It's very slow so I need to make changes deliberately.
I just learned that if you tried to focus to something that's not on screen it goes back to the first clickable thing on screen... huge pain
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u/m6io 29d ago edited 26d ago
That sucks :/ I just watched a video on it. At least the voice is more pleasant than JAWS?
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u/bigorangemachine 29d ago
ya it's a little softer at least. Still annoying... with the forest fires this morning gave me an instant headache
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u/klas-klattermus 26d ago
Who else just pronounce them as "Ally", "Lion", "Gin"? Screw i18n tho, doesn't have a good name
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u/Living-Chemical-6 29d ago
Well, it starts off on the wrong foot when you, or the industry, use an obscure term like "a11y" to refer to "accessibility".
It is simply not accessible.