Developers in general, and anyone working in tech really, other than being experts, they're also often passionate about tech outside their job. Which leads to a huge gap when designing digital products for general audience.

Don't forget specific learning disabilities, either. I, personally, have a deficiency in visual-spatial processing. I can't say that it's come up in a web UX context before, but I can certainly imagine it doing so if a site decides to implement some kind of fancy spatial UI.

when I was in high school they gave me some sort of advanced IQ test, I scored in the top 1% of the population for reading comprehension and logic, and in the lowest 5% for visual spatial processing - I have however improved quite a bit since that time in the latter area.

One of the things I gained an appreciation of was the editorial rule most newspapers had, but have now abandoned on the web, to write at or below an 8th grade level.

I know someone who has a 134 IQ (well above average) but also has a comprehension disorder. They work in tech, but often need to send articles/instructions to a peer for summary/interpretation. They have an extensive vocabulary but if there is an unnecessarily complex paragraph they just get lost between the beginning and end.

It’s greatly made me appreciate simple straightforward technical documentation beyond my existing appreciation because simplicity doesn’t waste my own time.

I use an adblocker, DarkReader, and reader mode, because of my ADHD. Even minor distractions or asinine GUI "features" can make it impossible for me to focus on the content of the page. I don't tend to think of myself as disabled, but I absolutely rely on accessibility tools (in all but name) to navigate the web.

I don't have ADHD but I have some neuro-visual impairments and movement + visual crowding are huge problems for me. It's basically really easy to turn things into an I Spy or Where's Waldo page for me where I can't see anything because there's too much going on. Lots of websites are problems.

One thing I also really like in addition to what you mentioned is greyscale mode.

My daughter has a very serious learning disability and she loves to swipe through home photos or videos on an android phone or on an ipad. She can mostly get on OK but when you look at it from her point of view, its _amazing_ how complicated 'swiping through pics' has become.

Swipe from the top? that brings the notifications

Swipe from the bottom? Brings up photo options. Press on one of those by accident and you end up in a nest of menus and features that can be hard to get out of.

Want to play a video? Tap once, the video controls fade in, you've then got to tap the play button in the middle of the screen within half a second or so, or it fades out again

Long press while scrolling through list of photos? Now you're in 'select mode' and every photo you press gets added to the selection rather than getting displayed. Can be very confusing.

Press the wrong button in IOS and you end up in very confusing picture-in-picture mode

One great thing about iOS is the 'guided access' feature, you can use it to lock the ipad into one app and even disable parts of the touchscreen so that a child can use the ipad without accidentally finding their way out of the app and into your email. I dont think Android has an equivalent.

Yep, imagine how difficult it is for the blind. I had to explain that tapping and swiping this light brick in their hand could order pizza. Pretty much witchcraft.

Android does have that feature on some phones, it's called App Pinning.

Insisting on just one button for basic interactions and swipes for the rest was a mistake.

On top of that apps (looking at you, Instagram) are often simply buggy. You can have the same video play or not play depending on how the winds of load balancing blow. No graceful degradation or anything.

"Hidden affordances" on steroids

I friend of mine a few years back once said to me, "Some days ADHD is my most disabling condition." This is a person who often can't walk.

I was properly medicated (with non-stimulant medication) for ADHD a few years ago and looking back to my life before that, I realize how much ADHD has negatively effected my life. And yet never along the way did anyone look at me with any sort of compassion. It was always seen as a moral failing on my part, a "Why can't you do this? Everyone else can." And I had been given those messages so consistently that I came to believe them about myself.

It was really eye-opening to have someone with a visibility tell me that sometimes their intellectual disability hampered their life more than their physical disability.

Out of curiosity, which non-stimulant medication did you have success with?

Atomoxetine/strattera.

I haven't actually read the book itself, but the book "You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid Or Crazy?!" has been valuable to me just for the title alone.

We take it for granted. But intellectual decline is a real thing. My memory was superior before. And my work processes revolved around superior memory. Then I got sick for 19 days with severe headaches. And I was not the same after.

I deserved it too. I was too proud and demeaning others for not being able (like me) to remember things.