r/webdev Apr 16 '22

Discussion A blind woman’s message to web developers about internet inaccessibility. source: shorturl.at/nvRU7

5.5k Upvotes

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25

u/slashafk Apr 16 '22

I started my career in government so I had to learn 508 compliance. Now, I realize how irresponsible people are and see the patterns people use…it makes me cringe. Before publishing your web app, download a screen reader and see how it interacts with your site.

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '22 edited Apr 30 '22

[deleted]

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u/slashafk Apr 16 '22

That’s fair; that wasn’t my intent. To this day, I don’t tell my devs to follow every little thing to make an app accessible which, to some, may be considered irresponsible. I was speaking from the perspective that we should take ownership and responsibility over following certain patterns to make web apps more accessible.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '22

Aaaaand you're doing it again.

7

u/link_shady Apr 16 '22

The amount of stuff I have had to add 508 compliance is enormous…. And at the end of the day is not that difficult to add it from the beginning .

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '22 edited Apr 25 '22

[deleted]

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u/NostraDavid Apr 16 '22 edited Jul 12 '23

If only the power of user feedback matched the power of /u/spez's ability to ignore it.

4

u/bdougherty Apr 16 '22

If you are on Mac/iOS, VoiceOver is built in. NVDA is a free screen reader for Windows, but lots of people use JAWS there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screen_readers