I actually randomly get reminded of this now and then, when I:
- open a door with an elbow instead of greasy or occupied hands
- tab through a UI or use alt key shortcuts to quickly perform repetitive tasks not worth automating
- take carts, bicycles, and other heavy objects up accessible ramps, kerb ramps, or mandatory lifts
- read alt tags of images that fail to load or that the file host has lost
- search in or read the captions/subtitles of media that doesn't get to the point
- read captions when I can't play audio
- machine-translate autogenerated captions from unknown languages
Not to mention all that gets taken for granted that wouldn't exist had it not been required.
Edit:
Found a submission about just this while searching for your past rants:) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30062178
In the disability spectrum chart linked there, the figure with a sword and round shield illustrating the 'Heavy Accent => Speech x Situational' case is brilliant; going far backwards in time guarantees linguistic distance from any viewer.
> The curb cut effect is the phenomenon of disability-friendly features being used and appreciated by a larger group than the people they were designed for. For example, many hearing people use closed captioning.
Lastly, I found the following video enlightening: “Accessibility [for game developers] on a shoestring” GDC 2021 https://youtu.be/PiCsvZZh5-k
What boggles me is that we have a dedicated UX team who seem not to care one whit for bandwidth and accessibility, just imprinting their 'vision' across the org through design systems. Questions around these topics are handwaved away. But speed and accessibility _are_ part of user experience, it's in the name sir!
That's why each of us should routinely be doing a few hours of customer support for the thing you build. Very humbling and educational.
This would be awesome swag at conferences that are frequented by frontend engineers.
Bless you for doing that. I have eye isses and every so often I suggest to devs that they put a thin layer of vaseline on their glasses just to see what a lot of older people do.
Our best results in meeting accessibility has been to incorporate them into design standards guide and in a brand's style guide, right next to approved fonts, colors, logos, etc. Teams never think about asking for accessibility standards but always make sure to references the other guides.
When I worked at the university, doing their websites, I simply could not get accessibility on anyone's radar: my boss, the people in the power structure nearby, the awful design people who saw the Web as a means to deliver photography and, if forced, text in a brochure format.
I had my own tools -- making sure the XHTML and CSS were valid, testing on multiple browsers, testing on lynx, a separate PC with jankety mouse settings to make it hard to click and a few sets of glasses to distort my vision, etc. Accessibility has to be a first class citizen when you make that template, it cannot be bolted on later. And it means being rigorous: fill out that alt text, test that tab order. I had no budget, just raw stubbornness and a willingness to be the bad guy.
It was continually infuriating that nobody cared about people with low vision, or crap bandwidth, or colorblindness, or motor tremor, because, barring an early death or really great health, we're all liable to enter one or more of these groups with time.
The last, sad argument I had, which worked and was shameful, is that good accessibility almost automatically makes your SEO better. It is both true and mildly upsetting to have to resort to, I felt like I was saying "... also, orphans are more gamey than other kinds of meat."
I don't think you can Javascript your way out of these very real problems. What is needed is an Accessibility Czar for your web properties, who can veto anything, who can pull off their shoe and pound it off the table and force someone on the Design Team to wear a little duncecap as they read out an article on Target getting mauled by the ADA for their screwups.