
Building accessible websites and apps is a moral obligation - everdev
https://gomakethings.com/building-accessible-websites-and-apps-is-a-moral-obligation/
======
DarkWiiPlayer
So let's say some random person, Bob, builds an awesome website in his free
time. Bob spends hundreds of hours just so others can use his awesome idea.
Now you're telling him what to do. That's not morality, that's just
entitlement.

Even if Bob was to put some ads on his webpage, because he wasn't so selfless
after all, then what?

> It’s not on people with disabilities to tell you how you screwed up

If you have a problem, you complain. If you don't complain, then you'll have
to wait until someone else does or just live with it. That goes for everybody;
it's how life works.

> If you build for the web, you have a moral obligation to make sure it works
> right for everyone.

No. No I don't.

It wasn't my moral obligation to build that website to begin with. It wasn't
my moral obligation to make it available to anyone in the first place. It's
not my obligation to translate the web page to make it available to people who
don't speak my language. And it isn't my obligation to make it available or
accessible to any other group of people.

~~~
SCdF
It's an interesting discussion. Governments often require buildings and
businesses to have certain accommodations for certain types of people.

Are websites different to buildings of businesses?

Mr Bob Hypothetical makes his new burger joint, and spend hundreds of hours
working making it so people can eat his awesome burgers. Should there be any
building or health codes he should have to follow?

I realise the barrier of entry to a website is lower than a physical business.
Presumably though at somewhere between ismyideafunnyyet.xyz and
amazon.com/co.uk/ca/multi-national doom machine we have to start treating them
with the same or similar expectations to the local chippy.

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
> somewhere between ismyideafunnyyet.xyz

The blog post doesn't make that distinction, nor does it seem like the author
really cares. That's precisely my point. Is it a moral obligation for amazon
to build their services so everyone can use them? There's probably a strong
case there.

I think we need to draw a few clear lines. Some websites are inherently tied
to one medium and don't make sense beyond it, others should be viewed as a
piece of art, just like a drawing or a piece of music.

~~~
SCdF
> I think we need to draw a few clear lines. Some websites are inherently tied
> to one medium and don't make sense beyond it, others should be viewed as a
> piece of art, just like a drawing or a piece of music.

Agree there, and it's very hard to draw these lines. Similarly to whether or
not it's OK for software you publish to be a buggy mess, somewhere between
your one-weekend lisp implementation you pushed to github and home security
camera firmware lines need to be drawn.

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csande17
People with visual disabilities make up about 2.5% of the US adult population.
(Source: [https://nfb.org/resources/blindness-
statistics#](https://nfb.org/resources/blindness-statistics#))

People who do not speak English natively make up about 20% of the US
population, and around 8% of the US cannot speak English fluently. (Source:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_Stat...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States)
, [http://blog.languageline.com/limited-english-proficient-
cens...](http://blog.languageline.com/limited-english-proficient-census#))

So if you're aiming for maximum inclusivity, you should consider translating
your app into Spanish a higher priority than adding ARIA tags.

~~~
zeveb
Unlike learning a language, blindness is not something which can be overcome
with education.

~~~
everdev
I've tried learning multiple languages and have lived abroad and learning
another language for me was not easy or fast despite years of studying and
practicing the language.

~~~
astrea
So? You still learned it. You can't learn to see if you're blind.

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
Just because something is possible you shouldn't go around expecting it from
anybody. Learning a language just for a website is dumb and nobody is going to
do it, so the website is essentially just as unaccessible to someone who
doesn't speak the language as someone who's blind.

~~~
astrea
I don't think you understand that my argument wasn't necessarily contrary to
yours, just stating that it's certainly easier to learn a language than it is
to not be blind. Both of which are unfair expectations to thrust upon anyone.

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coldtea
If those websites are life or business supporting or required to use
(government, etc).

I don't think it's a "moral obligation" to make e.g. a gaming website
accessible, any more than it is to "help the poor" or thousands of other ways
we can directly do good.

In other words, if someone fails to make their hobby SaaS for passive income
accessible, they haven't have some "moral failing". They just prioritized
shipping basic functionality for the majority of users. It's not really that
different that opening a website or business for business in one country (or
part of the country) and not another.

~~~
jscholes
> It's not really that different that opening a website or business for
> business in one country (or part of the country) and not another.

It is, because people can choose to move to a part of the country where your
business operates. Maybe people don't do this as a rule, but the option is
there. People can't just opt to not be disabled.

~~~
threatofrain
That is an absurd barrier. Move to a foreign country to get access?

Also, money is the ultimate accessibility issue that affects everyone, and
that's something Facebook and friends understands, which is why they're
swallowing the world.

Another huge reason people can't access things is because of linguistic or
cultural access. I mean, some people say the professional or academic writing
of their own culture has access issues...

~~~
jscholes
> That is an absurd barrier.

It may be absurd for someone who has always lived in a location with access to
the education, job opportunities and other services which allow them to live
the life they want. It's not quite that absurd for the millions of people who
have migrated to other countries rather than stagnating in a place they didn't
choose to be born in. It's not that absurd to those who live in countries so
vast that moving to another city may involve the sorts of distances that
people from smaller countries can't cover without crossing a border. And it's
not at all absurd for disabled people who do this because their country
doesn't allow for independence.

Nevertheless, my original comment was more addressing people who move to
another city/state, or away from a rural area, to gain access to services
which otherwise would remain unavailable to them. That happens all the time.

~~~
threatofrain
Next you're going to say that people should be making themselves unpoor?
Because you can't be unblind but you can be unpoor (I mean, you could even
move your family to another country and learn a new language), should we now
be asking why people choose to "remain poor"?

Money is the most severe access issue in the world, which is why Facebook and
friends are dominating. That's why they want to subsidize everything, because
even $5 is a barrier which will stop people across the world.

------
Mirioron
I would have no problem if this were _only_ a moral obligation, but it seems
like it's becoming more and more a legal obligation. Legal obligations that
require a developer add something frustrate me, because they essentially crush
people doing things for fun.

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
I'd say, when people build stuff for free, or in a way that it just barely
covers the costs, it's even morally wrong to expect them to make their stuff
more accessible. They're already doing others a favor and asking for even more
is just a sign of entitlement.

~~~
morpheuskafka
I think that the baseline more obligation is not to be _exclusive_ , i.e.
whether you are working for free or not, you have an obligation not to design
tools that actively further harm to a group, demean or discriminate against a
protected group, etc. The duty to be actively _inclusive_ scales with
commercial reasonability. For example, it would be reasonable to expect a
small business to read aloud a menu to someone with a visual disability, at
minimal cost. By contrast, it would be reasonable to expect a transnational
company like Walmart to spend significant sums making stores wheelchair
accessible. Someone who does something for free, or for incidental income,
should only have to do very low time/cost accommodations.

------
morpheuskafka
Here's my breakdown:

> Morality is not always relative (house example)

Building an unsafe house exposes people to active harm. When you invite
someone into a house you make the implied warranty that the roof will not
collapse and kill them do to your negligence.

> You’re a web professional

If you're making a new product for Google or Microsoft, I completely agree
with this article. However, developing web apps is not the same as building
bridges. If you are a bridge builder, you're a licensed civil engineer with a
sizeable government budget. If you build web apps, you might be a 30-year
senior dev, or you might be a student trying to launch a startup with a
hundred dollars and no employees. Or, you might just be making a personal web
page for yourself or family.

> The web is accessible out-of-the-box. We break it.

As with any term, "the web" can have multiple meanings. This statement is true
of the original web implementation, "[an] HTML file with no CSS and no
JavaScript." That's not the web anyone knows today. Modern definitions of the
web might include PWAs,

> It’s not on people with disabilities to tell you how you screwed up

If you're Google and you "forget" to alt-tag images, again I agree by all
means. But this is only true if we're talking about common knowledge stuff
(which is relative to size and resources of the developer) or things that are
deliberately ignored.

> It should be easier

Why is it the job of a side-project, non-profit, startup, or personal
developer to conform to obscure, complex standards--why isn't it the job of
the for-profit screen reader companies to make decent standards in the first
place?

> you have a moral obligation to make sure it works right for everyone.

Building anything is a game of tradeoffs. If you can afford and have the
expertise to do so, you absolutely should invest in a11y. Your moral
obligation is to not intentionally harm users, not to spend endless amounts of
time complying with every standard and best practice.

------
Glyptodon
I agree to a point, but I think it goes too far at times, mostly when it comes
to making _all_ images/video accessible. I can't imagine YouTube would exist
if it had to have captioning for every single video to begin with, for
example. (Now they auto-generate, but I don't think even today your average
independent web dev could make their own videos do that, pretty sure YouTube
needed a huge corpus of content to start with to develop it. And even with
auto generated subs, any video that's mostly things happening without words is
"dark" to a blind person.)

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> I can't imagine YouTube would exist if it had to have captioning for every
> single video to begin with

In many instances, the rise of YouTube has been deleterious to the web. So
much content that would have once been presented in text is now video, with
the result that what might have been a fast skim now forces readers to move at
the slower pace of the video, and it is much more difficult to parse for those
with disabilities or to find in a search engine. (Too much content today has
moved to images, too – it is remarkable how people who would have once written
a blog consisting of longform text, are now trying to shoehorn their content
into the more limited space that Instagram provides for them.)

~~~
Grumbledour
I can never get over the fact people share images with one or two sentence
"wisdoms" or "jokes" as their only content on social networks instead of just
copying text.

------
SCdF
Perhaps a more general state is that it's a moral obligation to think and care
about inclusivity relevant to your platform, instead of just "works for me"ing
it.

The application I work on is not specifically inclusive of blind people.
However, it is inclusive of people who have very basic levels of general and
technical education (e.g. not understanding what a percentage is), because
those are the people we know use it.

I think it's understandable if your videogame doesn't work with blind people,
but lots of people have simple visual imparements you could work around
(colour blind modes, scalable UI for old people etc).

Similarly, giving a shit about having good contrast on your website doesn't
seem like a big ask, as well as not breaking everything when someone wants to
scale fonts.

I don't think you have to support every possible use case under the sun, but
at least thinking about and considering some of them is a big positive step.

------
soheil
You could turn anything into a moral obligation, eg. I have a moral obligation
not to eat pasta because there is less environmentally damaging food available
and it's also probably doing some non-zero amount of harm to my body compared
to something healthier so since I may feel a tiny bit worse therefore I'll
have less potential energy to help someone in need or have a lower probability
of assisting a disabled person when I next encounter one. So let's not play
that game.

------
overshard
As a contract developer who provides estimates on my work I always include a
section for ADA compliance, WCAG compliance, Accessibility, and a few others.
I provide time estimates and explain to my clients that I consider these
extremely important things to do. My company has the ability, knowledge, and
experience making websites that are accessible.

Our clients often don't want to spend the money required for this task.

This seems to assume that the developer is at fault for making the choice to
not make websites accessible and not management or clients who don't want
people to spend time on "useless" things like aria attributes.

I preach about accessibility to every manager and client I meet. Most don't
care because it "costs them money for such a small percentage of users".

~~~
Grumbledour
Adherence to laws or special guidelines may take time and cost money, but
isn't a professional working to spec what a client should be able to expect?
Should a baseline of accessibility not always be provided and thus figured
into the base price? Does adhering to HTML Spec for example cost a premium
price?

~~~
overshard
Adhering to HTML spec does not by default make a fully accessible website.
White text on a white background adheres to the spec but no one can see it. If
you mean adhereing to something like WCAG then that is a premium since it
requires things like aria attributes, balancing contrasting colors for
foreground and background and a whole slew of other things.

Isn't it my job as a professional to tell my clients what I am doing and how
much it will cost them? Isn't it my job to also explain the importance of
these line items? I do this task.

Isn't it my client's professional job to then take that information, process
it and see how those line items affect their bottom line? If accessibility for
the blind on an Aircraft Pilot app website for Pilots who need vision to have
that job and use the app is then excluded is this a moral failing on my part
or the clients fault? I would say no in both cases, they have literally zero
visitors who are blind visiting their website.

~~~
Grumbledour
Your arguments seems reasonable and I heard it before, but I am not really
convinced it strikes to the heart of the matter. Accessibility does include
more than the HTML Spec, but adherence to the spec already provides a huge
chunk of accessibility for free. And I don't feel every website needs to be
100% accessible, but people complaining about lacking accessibility often do
so because developers disregard good practices and common sense. Yes, bad
contrast is bad, but most disabled users know ways to fix this minor issue[0],
but needing js to dynamically load basic text and image content that a screen
reader than struggles with is just inexcusable and gets to the hearth of the
issue, that ignoring accessibility also often means ignoring different user
Plattforms and usage. A finely crafted website is not only readable by a
modern browser and a screen reader, it will also very probably mostly work on
older browsers, minor browsers/operating systems and so on. So every developer
should have accessibility in mind when creating websites.

Of course, being competitive, a shoddy developer who just bangs two wordpress
themes together will always be cheaper than good craftsmanship, but in my
experience, the problem is more often targeting the wrong clients anyway.

[0] And, as sad is this is, the actual design is often not the developers
responsibility, unless of course, when it is, in which case he is also to
blame. ;-)

~~~
overshard
I agree with you, my only point is that accessibility costs something. It
either costs time and money if you want to adhere to some standard like WCAG,
it costs in hiring a better designer who doesn't make inaccessible design
choices and understands basics like contrast ratios, and/or it costs in hiring
a developer who has enough experience and common sense to know what is
accessible and what isn't.

Accessibility costs time and money, there is no way around this. Not all
companies want to pay that money. I don't think the entirety of the blame can
be placed on developers.

~~~
Grumbledour
You are right, it is not entirely free. I do see a baseline accessibility as
necessary to call yourself a competent developer though. And you are right, a
competent developer costs more than a bad one. But we are a community of
developers here who, i would assume, think of themselves as competent. Should
we not strife for a certain baseline standard instead of partaking in a race
to the bottom? In the end, there is always someone that does a bad job cheaper
than we can. I know there are often economical circumstances and we all cut
corners one time or another, but we as the knowledgeable developers must be
the one to educate the clients and put in the work, because no one else will.

------
janpot
It's as much my moral obligation to build an accessible website as it is a
mason's moral obligation to build a wheelchair accessible house.

------
gnicholas
> _An HTML file with no CSS and no JavaScript is accessible by default._

This is not true. What about color contrast? What about alt text for images?
These problems (and many others) can occur in plain html pages.

~~~
vanadium
Color contrast between a default background #FFF and foreground text of #000
is pretty much the gold standard.

~~~
gnicholas
That’s true! But the author didn’t talk about just sticking to the defaults.
He made it seem like it was as simple as not using CSS and JS. In reality,
it’s more complicated, like you pointed out.

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polote
We have vision algorithms that are able to tell that a picture is a picture of
a horse, why do we still need the alt attribute ?

We have the level of knowledge to build a tool that make website accessible,
so my opinion is you need that tool. It is easier to build one accessible tool
than to ask all developers of the world to put an alt attribute and respect
the h1, h2 naming

------
elpakal
Yes. And in some cases you can actually be fined and or sued for ignoring
accessibility requirements for handicapped and senior users. So you could
argue the government will enforce morality if you do not.

Side note, in interviews I always gauge seniority by asking about
accessibility. I find it an obvious characteristic of more junior engineers to
not have had to consider accessibility APIs. It is a must, and rightfully so.

------
matz1
>Would you say the builder has a moral obligation to not build a house that’s
going to collapse on people?

This is nothing to do with moral obligation. At least for me, much more to
with the cost vs return on building a house that’s going to collapse on
people.

Unless I'm forced to build website that is accessible, I won't do it.

------
selfsimilar
TFA gets a few things wrong - the analogy to house building is off, and I
don't think the moral argument is even necessary - but ultimately if, as I
infer, he's talking about web professionals, not hobbyists, those people
should care and be educated about how to do this.

The house analogy bothers me because a house is not a public space the way a
shop or museum is. And a lot of accessibility concerns like contrast ratios
are simple and can be minor CSS changes - analogous to curb cuts in sidewalks.
But if you're acting as architect for a public-facing website for a business
then it absolutely makes sense without invoking any moral obligation to
engineer at least a minimum amount of accessibility.

------
glvn
I look at this very simply. If you are a business that is marketing the app to
external consumers, adding internationalization and accessibility protects you
from possible legal and regulatory trouble, while also increasing the size of
your potential user base.

But for side projects? No, when it comes to my side project, I'm the master,
in the dictator, what I say goes. Users don't like it? Tough, go build your
own app.

~~~
aklemm
Sure, but you have to accept that means you are not committed to the dignity
of disabled viewers.

------
malvosenior
You should build for your market. Unless you're specifically targeting a
market segment that has accessibility requirements, then you should do the
least amount of work possible to provide value, then iterate. When creating a
product in an _early stage_ market, most development time is better suited to
discovering an MVP than adding accessibility features. Think of it as
premature optimization.

------
luiscleto
Yes, it's a good thing for sites and apps to be accessible.

No, it's not an obligation of any kind (nor should it be).

For companies that have grown enough to be providing services to (and
profiting off of) a large enough part of the population, it would make sense
to expect them to put resources into this. For someone working for free,
trying to get an idea off the ground, or servicing a very niche subset of the
population (i.e. a very restricted market) this blanket statement makes no
sense and the costs it would add to make it an obligation would likely only
cause a decrease in quantity of what is available (which, if deemed valuable,
can be made more accessible later on) rather than an increase in quality of
what's available.

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jimmaswell
I thought screen readers by now would be able to adapt to the large volume of
malformed web content out there instead of breaking on misused tags etc.

------
MentallyRetired
Chalk it up to SEO if you need to make a business case for it.

