Mastodawn

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.

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James Scholes Feb 27

If you're wondering what sort of #accessibility issues I mean when I say "papercuts," here are some examples:

First-letter navigation not working in commonly used parts of the Windows 11 UI, like "open with" dialogs and the system tray.

NVDA's browse mode suddenly becoming inactive and inoperable when transitioning between webpages.

Multi-line textareas being reported as "blank" in Chrome and Chromium-based apps.

Focus moving to the message list instead of the next or previous email when deleting content in Thunderbird.

These are things that can and should be fixed. But if or when they are, it'll be easy to write up another list of small, non-blocking issues that but nevertheless contribute to a frustrating, unproductive experience.

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Nikola Jović Feb 28

@jscholes Yep, that. First letter navigation is the particularly annoying one for me, it's like Microsoft for some reason forgot that was ever a thing. Whenever I hear that a part of Windows 11 is going to be redesigned I immediately go, oh great, now time to figure out which accessibility bugs we'll have to deal with and which conventions that worked for years no longer will.

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kellylford

@NikJov @jscholes This is such a loss of functionality and annoyance throughout Windows. I've had this conversation with developers and program managers so many times and every time an app switches to a new framework we have to start over.