Thanks for that. I couldn't read this article the first time it came up
on a mailing list I was on because of the nytimes login requirement.
The thing that this article does not point out is that in general,
making a site accessible is relatively easy, and largely consists of not
doing fancy useless things with their html code.
Javascript probably makes more sites inaccessible than any other
technology I can think of.
Especially when javascript is used to handle things that html already does.
A properly designed web site will be perfectly accessible, and there's
no need to resort to AI or any other kind of tools to get the job done.
The problem is that webmasters (or more often than not) page generators
haven't a clue about accessibility, and don't know that simple things
like image descriptions, button labels and real html code (instead of
javascript) do way more to make a site accessible than some automated
generator that has templates that are loaded with garbage just to fill
out the page size, so folks don't feel cheated, or so that the company
generating the generator can claim the most capabilities over all other
generators.
It's rather silly to be honest.
t-mobile is one of the sites that uses one of these site generator
things to make the site accessible. It (mostly) works, but there's one
major issue, and that's that a screen reader user can't actually order
anything on their site, because the button to confirm your selections
after all is said and done isn't viewable by the screen reader. Kind of
defeats the purpose of having that accessibility mode, but <shrug>
I've complained about that many times, and nothing has been done, yet,
and I expect nothing will be done anytime soon.
I bug the hell out of them by calling them on the phone, and making them
do the order that way. They keep complaining I don't use the site, and
I keep complaining it doesn't work, so calls can get quite entertaining.
On 7/17/2022 1:39 PM, Gisle Vanem wrote:
Karen Lewellen wrote:
sharing this article, not only because it is terrific, but it
fortifies ways continuing to keep Lynx at the table creates solutions.
Few tools manage basic code better speaking personally.
Kare
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2022 12:45:43 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: For Blind Internet Users, the Fix Can Be Worse Than the Flaws
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/technology/ai-web-accessibility.html
For those w/o a New York Times subscription, I've
scraped it and saved it as a PDF here:
https://www.watt-32.net/misc/For-Blind-Internet-Users-NYT.pdf
(or use Lynx or turn off JavaScript in Chrome etc.)