

Is the world moving away from accessible design? - ian1255
http://softwareprototyping.net/2009/02/09/are-we-moving-away-from-accessible-design/

======
Loic
Very nice article effectively. But accessibility is not only good for old
people or ones with a visual disability.

I discussed with a 16 year old a couple of weeks ago and asked what she though
about the iPhone and the Nokia (she had a Nokia in hands).

She did only one thing in front of me: Unlocked her phone, wrote an SMS, sent
it, everything without even having a glance at the screen. Then she smiled,
looked at me and said "Can you do it with an iPhone?".

Me: speechless and lesson learned.

~~~
rimantas
<http://www.apple.com/accessibility/iphone/vision.html>

~~~
gloob
That is a useful replacement for tactile feedback in the same way that this

[http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-
revolutionary...](http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-
revolutionary-new-laptop-with-no,14299/)

is a useful replacement for a keyboard.

~~~
rimantas
How does tactile feedback help to _read_ for the blind?

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bluesmoon
Very well written article that touches on some of the more important points
about accessibility. I've seen the attitude that they mention in too many
developers. What they don't realise is that for people with a visual or motor
disability, a computer and the internet can make possible things that weren't
earlier possible or make easier things that were hard.

If you'd fractured both legs or you're allergic to sunlight, would you prefer
to get your milk at the local grocery store or to order it online and have it
home delivered? If you had a visual disability and had to rely on audio cues,
would you prefer a conversation in a crowded room full of people or IRC?

I don't know if toucscreen devices can replicate the kind of tactile feedback
you get from a physical keyboard. I've heard of research in this area that
uses tiny electric pulses or vibration, but I don't have a source to cite
right now. It may be some way off, but just dismissing it by saying it's not
necessary isn't the solution. We're all smart enough to figure it out if we
first identify it as a problem.

Remember some of the first FORTRAN and COBOL programmers are in their 70s now.
Arthritis and visual problems aren't that uncommon at that age. Will PHP,
Python and Ruby programmers still be able to use a computer when they turn 70?

------
teaspoon
I wish this article would get past the "disabled people don't use computers"
straw man (at least, I hope none of OP's technical friends really espouse
that) and address the reasons that designers marginalize accessibility in real
decisions.

For one, most of us are ignorant as to just how many users fall outside the
"able" use case, and in what ways. Among product managers, if you can't
quantify that unusual use case, it's going to be termed the "10% case" or the
"1% case". And that is the kiss of death.

For another thing, few of us have any idea _how_ people outside the majority
want to use software. It's just as ludicrous to assume that a legally blind
person will use a cameraphone the same way as you do as to assume that she
won't use a cameraphone at all. Perhaps she's far more likely to use it for
document scanning, and far less likely to demand the option to apply a wacky
sepia tone effect to her photos.

Getting the answers to these questions into designer's heads is going to have
more impact than any number of "come on, you guys" appeals.

~~~
teaspoon
Incidentally, in the specific case of colorblindness, I think the
abovementioned type of awareness is starting to permeate the industry. You can
especially see the results in games, which sometime include a colorblind-
friendly display mode.

------
tjpick
_actual tactile feedback_. A major feature of real buttons. This is what they
refer to as affordance. A button, by its nature, is meant to be pushed, and
obviously so, even when you aren't looking at it.

The more interesting trend to me, which seems to be true for both touchscreen
and accessible design is... _no mouse_. There's a shake up from which ever way
you look at it.

~~~
Isofarro
Accessibility is much about understanding what can be perceived and
understood. Yes, non-tactile buttons aren't great for people who rely on touch
- but that doesn't matter if there's a better interface that is accessible.

A visual person looks at an iphone and sees the touch screen as a series of
hotspots, something akin to a button. But, it's a flat surface, it doesn't
have to be interpreted as non-tactile buttons.

Look at an iphone touchscreen when the phone is switched off. Now look at a
Macbook touchpad. If the touchpad - with no 'screen' behind it, or no display
at all - how would you use that to navigate around the various features of an
iPhone like OS?

Very quickly you'd land on the idea of gestures with spoken output. You'd
create a navigation of gestures. Swipe left to move to the next application.
Swipe right for the previous application. Double tap to activate the selected
application. That's just for starters.

As the iphone demonstrates, there's a rich language for interacting with the
device that seems to be enough to navigate around the various features of the
phone.

Accessibility is about providing the equivalent functionality. No-one ever
said the way of using it had to be the same, just equivalent. A different
interaction allows access to the same functionality.

I remain deeply impressed with Apple for producing a mobile device that for
the blind community absolutely rocks. It's a pity that Google's equivalent
device is not as well thought out or implemented, sure it works for TV Raman,
but others I've spoken to have concluded that Google's attempts are nowhere
near iPhone quality.

------
chc
EITHER flat touchscreen devices are inherently unusable OR designers don't
have to make major compromises to provide accessibility. One or the other —
not both. This article spends half its time bashing touchscreens and the other
half brushing aside designers' objections that they'll have to make sacrifices
to achieve the kind of accessibility he's looking for. Not even arguing
against the objections, just saying that it's not really a problem and the
real issue is those darn lazy designers who "don’t prioritise the effort."

It would have been really cool and useful and might have actually changed some
minds if he'd included practical advice into his post rather than just gripes
and platitudes. Brushing aside the objections of the people you're trying to
convince is pretty much the worst argumentation tactic imaginable.

------
macrael
[http://blogs.forbes.com/booked/2010/04/12/apples-ipad-
brings...](http://blogs.forbes.com/booked/2010/04/12/apples-ipad-brings-easy-
reading-to-the-blind/)

<http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/accessibility.html>

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/more-accessibility-
fe...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/more-accessibility-features-in-
android.html)

[http://developer.apple.com/technologies/iphone/accessibility...](http://developer.apple.com/technologies/iphone/accessibility.html)

This is a very important issue, and touch screen devices present new
challenges to making applications accessible, but it does not appear that the
problem is being ignored.

------
mortenjorck
I was going through a Section 508-derived set of standards today for a
government project, and it was surprising just how many of the implementation
requirements were really just best practices for semantic markup. Isn't that
the way forward for accessibility everywhere? When data, interaction, and
presentation are properly modular, it's much easier to replace parts of the
system for those unable to use them.

------
Semiapies
I've also seen this attitude in discussions of new user interfaces for
computers. Whenever some new GUI show up here (or yet another post shows up
about that awful 10/GUI system), many people get defensive or dismissive about
the idea that some thought should be spared for those without 20/20 full-color
eyesight and normal dexterity.

------
zokier
Why should everyone be limited to the subset of designs/techs that are
accessible? Choice is a good thing, we can have both unaccessible and
accessible designs at the market, and let the people choose what they want and
can use.

~~~
macrael
That's true, choice is a good thing until you are blind and then you have no
choice. In the US, the whole point of Section 508 is to protect the minority.
If you left it up to the market, the majority of people who have no
disabilities would be the ones who are catered too and a secondary market
attempting to address the needs of people with disabilities would have to
spring up. Most likely, things in that market would be inferior on the whole
to their counterparts in the mainstream market simply by virtue of there being
a lot less invested in them. That is not what we want, someone who is disabled
should have the same choices as someone who does not.

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simonw
The iPhone works fantastically well for bond users, thanks to the brilliant
design of VoiceOver. It turns out tactile feedback isn't nearly as essential
as one might expect.

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RyanMcGreal
Is there even some way to replicate the touch screen functionality through
keystrokes on a plug-in keyboard?

~~~
ekiru
For how many of the applications available for touchscreen phones and tablets
is the touchscreen really necessary? For some of them(fast-paced games,
visual-arts-related things, etc.), the touchscreen is key, but those are
largely inherently inaccessible to the blind. Not as much to arthritics and
others with decreased manual dexterity, but they'd probably be better off with
a mouse.

For most iPhone/Pad apps, the touchscreen, at best, makes the UI more
convenient. It is not at all integral to the functionality. One of the
frequent criticisms of Android is the risk of fragmentation of the platform
between devices with very different capabilities, but this is one situation
where that could actually be a good thing. There's no hope that a blind person
will ever be able to use an iPhone or an iPad, but there is at least a chance
that HTC or some other company will release an Android device targeting people
who have difficulties with touchscreens. It probably would be a much worse
experience than a normal Android device for people who can use touchscreens,
but the decision for those that can't wouldn't be between a normal smartphone
and one without a touchscreen, but between a phone without a touchscreen and
no smartphone at all.

~~~
idoh
It turns out that the iPhone is actually an excellent smartphone for the blind
- check out VoiceOver.

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terra_t
I've worked enough in the non-profit sector, where 'accessibility' is a
substitute for 'usability'. Never again.

