James ScholesFeb 27

I believe that the #accessibility of everyday tech for #screenReader users is on a slow but consistent decline. Operating systems, browsers, messaging apps, email clients, even command line tools.

These things are not being replaced with more #accessible alternatives, but nor does the investment exist to stop the rot within the current options.

This in itself is concerning, particularly as it mirrors tech trends more broadly. But what I worry about quite a bit is what it does for user expectations.

What happens when generations of people grow up with inefficient keyboard access models, faux desktop apps, and a thousand tiny papercuts here and there? When the new baseline is worse than it was before, it takes that bit more effort to imagine and advocate for best rather than just better.

Show threadTamas G
@ZBennoui @jscholes I'm with you on this 100%. Problem is that combined with the false sense of software scarcity (as I boosted a post on this yesterday) and AI coding means the quality will not go up, but go down. Sure, coders can imagine and build out a million things, but attention to detail will be lacking, and it's possible that newer frameworks just don't implement accessibility APIs well or at all because an AI forgot. That pain and bottleneck will be real, and relying on AI alone to get things done is great that it exists but never gets you a consistent metric for measuring because it will go through the flow differently each time. All this to say, I don't see an easy way out of what we've dug ourselves into, well, the industry has.
Feb 27 at 6:30pmWeb