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Comment by johncoltrane | Hacker News Reader

Accessibility is not a technical issue so there is no reason to expect developers to focus on it. A triple A website is not fundamentally harder to build than a single A one, or one where it doesn't matter. The difficulties of accessibility are elsewhere: content strategy, UX, design, project management, conflicting priorities, etc. and are exponentially harder as you add As to your target.

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> Accessibility is not a technical issue so there is no reason to expect developers to focus on it.

I have to disagree with this part. All the points you've mentioned are required to maintain a general accessibility awareness within a project. But getting accessibility right is still mostly a technical topic: using buttons vs. links, using semantic HTML, implementing ARIA roles correctly for non-native components, having at least a high-level WCAG knowledge, being able to operate a screen reader, etc.

I absolutely agree. Whilst other roles play a part in accessibility the lion's share of responsibility absolutely sits with the front end developer.

Everything you mentioned a) can be learned on the spot, and b) has been a solved problem for at least a decade. Accessibility offers no technical challenge whatsoever and, _if correctly prioritised_, can be handled by _any_ developer at _any_ seniority level.

You should stop expecting every junior to have the same domain knowledge you developed over a decade or two. The challenges are elsewhere.

Your experience does not match mine and many of other accessibility specialists. So we have to agree to disagree.

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