I'm kind of concerned about the culture surrounding usability
Of course, nothing on this forum. I don't think we're even known by the usability community.
Anyways, I've been trying to branch out and gain more support and drumming for my game and I've kind of noticed a few worrying trends in these communities:
1. They seem more interested in forcing developers to follow standards rather than actually achieving those standards. I think this is the wrong approach. As more and more developers are able to jump on board with development, the ability to actually educate these people on proper accessibility standards. Combined with point #3 I think this is a recipe for wasted resources.
2. The movement seems pretty damn broiled in left-wing politics, which not only I think alienates , but is completely unnecessary to most issues regarding accessibility. Most accessibility issues, in my opinion, should be treated as technical issues, because oftentimes there's very little that politics can do to help t he problem. in the case of the ADA for example, it unintentionally caused other problems, such as the wheelchair/blind competition problem, so politics is at best a risky choice that should only be implemented if it's likely the laws will improve the situation, such as ramp building codes.
3. Moral parading seems to be a major issue as well. More people seem interested in denouncing developers who can't implement . Furthermore, often embarrassing suggestions such as this are presented by actual professionals. By the way, "Always On" is a terrible idea because it pushes away non-disabled users. A better solution would just be an accessibility toggle. Here's another example of moral parading.
4. Way too much focus on "inclusivity". While I personally feel that disabled people should be included, just goin g around spamming about how much better you are than others because you're "inclusive" comes off as arrogant and makes you look like you look down at other developers, who are already often overworked. The issue is more objectively rooted in a social utility problem - disabled people are seen as "useless" and accessibility helps make them "useful". Furthermore, the inclusive label to outsiders is very reminicent of the 90's fad of having disabled people appear in cartoons as an obligation for the network, implying that disabled people are "the third wheel".
5. Lots of focus on word policing. Listen, I know I have a harsh mouth and I know it's a cruel thing to call someone who's mentally handicapped a "retard", but going and telling people that certain words shouldn't be used is, for lack of better words. FUCKING RETARDED. It doesn't actually achieve anything, and people will still be nasty either w ay, so you're not even teaching disabled people how to deal with these problems. This "unconscious verbage" shit seems like an excuse to ignore doing more tangible work.
6. The community as a whole only seems interested in implementing standards, rather than reworking them for modern computing.
In my opinion, the correct approach to modern accessibility is to produce more relevant modern standards, and actually provide toolkits that other developers can easily use to implement accessibility seamlessly. While some devs do provide this, it's pretty minimal and most development seems restricted to a single independent project. Furthermore, I think some more advanced changes to current accessibility models should be implemented (such as encouraging a branching tree model instead of focus order, which is linear). Politics should be avoided at all costs since disabled people represent a wide variety of political beliefs.
I should note that it's n ot like the whole community is like this, but these problems seem to be very prevalent.
I mean, it's not just me being an insensitive prick is it? I know I'm not perfect but what the hell. Did I just miss some memo or something? I genuinely feel extremely concerned that my game's success and the implementation of new, more useful standards might be affected by these honestly backwards-seeming practices. It's like we need a paradigm shift or something.
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