Re: [Lynx-dev] For Blind Internet Users, the Fix Can Be Worse Than the Flaws

[Travis Siegel]

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.)