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Re:Designing web page layouts for screen readers by reaperducer on Thursday December 27, 2018 @12:52PM (#18771096)
My biggest frustration with building accessible web sites is that what looks good to a boss, or manager, or marketing department is not always what works well for building a semantic, accessible web page. It's often a struggle to make the two work together, especially years after a site is completed and new features have to be bolted on because of the whims of someone higher in the food chain.

I often wonder if it would be easier to push out a second, accessibility-friendly version of the site on a subdomain. Something like acc.example.com that screen readers and other accessibility tools would check for when they access example.com.

We used to do this back in the WAP days: wap.example.com, and even in the early iPhone days with i.example.com, mobile.example.com, or m.example.com.

I believe it would save time on some projects.

Re:Designing web page layouts for screen readers by esphen on Thursday December 27, 2018 @03:16PM (#18772259)
Be careful with this.

While it may sound like a good idea, it literally violates the U.S. Air Carrier Access Act and SAS (the airline) was recently fined for doing exactly what you describe[1].

This solution may also create a situation where the accessible website becomes a "second class citizen" in terms of content because managers are not willing to allocate resources to improving the dedicated accessibility-friendly version. I argue it's much better to make a11y a part of the specification process just like we did with the responsive web when we abandoned WAP.

[1]: https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/dot7418

Re:Designing web page layouts for screen readers by reaperducer on Thursday December 27, 2018 @03:53PM (#18772548)
Interesting. I don't work in the airline space, but I wouldn't be surprised if other sectors had similar laws. So I guess the suggestion is moot.
Re:Designing web page layouts for screen readers by robmc_ on Thursday January 03, 2019 @10:06AM (#18815595)
Not only do you run the risk of offending users with disabilities by forcing a separate experience, this also creates a separate code base to maintain and often developers forget to update text-only versions. I've worked in the accessibility space for years and this concept is an idea of the past and likely to generate a lawsuit. Accessibility lawsuits are popping up left and right in the public sector across every business vertical and I would strongly advise against this.
Re:Designing web page layouts for screen readers by maroonblazer on Thursday December 27, 2018 @10:30PM (#18774699)
I'm one of those in the marketing department and there's a compelling case to be made for making sites accessible. If you're running into obstacles from management or marketing it's likely because they don't have a grasp of the numbers.

Getting the data is easier nowadays than in the past. E.g. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellane... and http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/07/disabled-ame...

Re:Designing web page layouts for screen readers by mwcampbell on Thursday December 27, 2018 @02:49PM (#18772024)
> I often wonder if it would be easier to push out a second, accessibility-friendly version of the site

Can you be sure that the separate accessible version would be kept up to date with the mainstream version, and have all the same functionality? "Separate but equal" didn't work when applied to racial segregation, and accessibility advocates tend to discourage it as well.

Re:Designing web page layouts for screen readers by 1996 on Thursday December 27, 2018 @02:12PM (#18771712)
Small teams are better.

You can try to sway your boss by explaining the second "accessibility-friendly" version is needed for a different set of target audience.

http://cryptomarketplot.com/accessible-index.html is made both for geeks who use terminal browsers like links, and people who depend on screen readers and could not use the graphs.

Seriously, try the page with elinks inside xterm to even get the colored trend arrows!

Re:Designing web page layouts for screen readers by zozbot123 on Thursday December 27, 2018 @04:04PM (#18772618)
> I often wonder if it would be easier to push out a second, accessibility-friendly version of the site on a subdomain

Isn't this essentially what AMP is? It's not limited to Google subdomains AFAICT, e.g. apparently Cloudflare can also host cached AMP content.