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Comment by ben_jones | Hacker News Reader

You can hate the deficiencies of screen readers and accessibility specifications while still supporting the individuals who need to use them.

Reading OP it seems like his team is shouldering a disproportionate amount of what should be a shared burden.

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What burden do you think should be shared by whom?

The developers of screen reader apps are responsible for presenting the information to the user, just like a browser is. It is a mystery to me that they've managed to shove that burden onto every single developer who builds a website. The data is already there and Google manages to extract what's relevant, why can't the screen readers?

To me that argument doesn't make sense... It seems like arguing that because there are wheelchairs that can climb staircases, there's no need to make buildings wheelchair accessible.

I thing the problem with this argument is that it shifts the burden of serving all people (including disabled people) from the company providing the service to a person who is disabled. That's exactly what the ADA was supposed to prevent.

No, it's like if we had wheelchairs that were so broken and unstable, everybody had to build ramps with very special and hard to maintain padding on it, which varied between wheelchairs.

It's the responsibility of the wheelchair makers to at least build a reasonably stable product that everybody can support.

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