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Comment by ndarilek | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but in the context of building a visual layout tool, for someone to say that it shouldn't or doesn't need to be accessible to a blind person because OMG, visual! completely misses the point that it can be, and that other tools before it are. To say "I didn't have time to focus on accessibility because I was struggling with the challenges of making a Java codebase run under wasm" is one thing, and a thing I myself can relate to, having banged my head on wasm's challenges myself. To say "there's just no way to make a visual layout tool accessible to folks who can't see, so I'll just throw up my hands and give up" is another entirely. And I don't think that's what OP is doing, but I do think it's what some in this comment thread are advocating, and that's what bugs me.

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Also, on a note directly applicable to this example, if you think hammers are unusable by folks without arms, might I suggest the documentary Right Footed? I can't say whether or not she uses a hammer without arms, but she flies a plane and drives with her feet, so I can't imagine her not using a hammer if she didn't want to.

It feels a bit inspiration-porny at times, and my girlfriend and I both cringed quite a bit while watching it, but I think it makes the point I'm trying to much better than I am. Please don't dismiss a challenge out of hand because you can't imagine in 15 seconds of thought how it might be overcome.

"you" being a generic term applicable to anyone reading this, BTW.

> a challenge _out of hand_

-_-

Making something accessible for a group of people is an opportunity cost at every step in the process. For some reason you've determined that "making the Java codebase run under wasm" is an acceptable diversion from making it accessible, but what makes other decisions less so? For example, I haven't bothered supporting IE for many years, regardless of the fact that there are potential users that will be unable to use services because of it. Same thing with internationalization, there's an opportunity cost that has to be made. That doesn't mean don't make the decision to expand support, I'm just saying that it IS a decision and it DOES have a cost.

If you don't perceive it that way, you have to accept that there is a near infinite number of accessibility measures to contend with. Maybe I add support for red green color blindness, and then discover there are other types. The package bundle is too large for users in countries with poor internet access, so you need to have a fallback that removes features, and dedicate some resources to minimizing the initial load time. Oh, the input configuration doesn't make sense for users who are unable to use keyboard and mouse, but use an alternative input mechanism, you have to change it to support that. Oh no, adding support to assist those users has made able users switch to the assisted input configuration, and given them a competitive advantage in your game.

Every company cannot service every need. Those that service a need open potential to acquire the market. That may or may not be worth it or possible at any given point, and that's okay.

> or some reason you've determined that "making the Java codebase run under wasm" is an acceptable diversion from making it accessible,

They didn't say that. They said "I didn't have time to focus on accessibility because I was struggling with the challenges of [...]" You're focusing on the [...] which could be anything, it doesn't matter. The point is they're acknowledging it's a legitimate issue that they just didn't have the time or ability to fix. As opposed to saying it's a non-issue or something they refuse to fix.

For example, "My personal website isn't accessible because I wrote the code from scratch to learn myself and it's not perfect" is fine. "My personal website isn't accessible because I don't have any blind friends so it doesn't need to be" is less so.

Thanks, a thousand times this. :) Even though this particular codebase doesn't bother me at all, my perception of the responses in this thread does bug me, and I appreciate that someone less emotionally attached than I am has both gotten it and taken the time to try explaining it.

> you have to accept that there is a near infinite number of accessibility measures to contend with

This is why we have accessibility standards and guidelines that are not an infinite number of pages long.

Can we just agree that Matt was pointing out a gap and leave it at that?

I know more than most people that there is a cost to making things accessible. Do you not think that I get the dumbed-down, PR/support-filtered version of that response every single time I reach out to a company and tell them that a thing my company is using is unusable by me? :)

But I think we, by which I mean everyone in this thread, can acknowledge that without implying that our needs aren't worth considering because there aren't many of us, or that they aren't worth considering because no one immediately knows how. If that isn't what folks have done here then I'll own my misunderstanding, but folks could have just acknowledged the comment rather than criticizing him for having the audacity to suggest that I too might want to appreciate the technical achievement for myself..

And FWIW, I kind of resent having my disability, which no amount of learning or software upgrades will fix, lumped into the same category of English proficiency or IE 6. That does feel a bit condescending. Saying "well, some people can't upgrade their browsers" is in an entirely different league than a visual disability that no amount of upgrades or night classes can fix. I'm not saying that switching browsers or learning a new language are possible for everyone, but short of gene editing, there is no way for me to eliminate my blindness. I'm not upset about the examples you chose, but would like to politely suggest that you reframe how you think about these issues. :) Thanks, and not in a snarky way. :)

I was worried that me bringing up other accessibility consideration might come off as making the case that a browser upgrade was an equivalent inconvenience as blindness, and that wasn't my point at all.

That's fair. I accept that isn't what you meant. Thanks for confirming it, and apologies for the implication.

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