

Comments on Apple and National Federation of the Blind Resolution - davidbarker
https://nfb.org/blog/vonb-blog/comments-apple-and-nfb-resolution-2014-12

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jareds
I think [http://www.marco.org/2014/07/10/app-review-should-test-
acces...](http://www.marco.org/2014/07/10/app-review-should-test-
accessibility) would be a good way to deal with this. As a blind iPhone user I
don't think all apps should have to be made accessible. For example I will
never play Angry Birds or use image editing apps. While inaccessible updates
are an issue this resolution is overly vague. It would be better if there was
a section 508 type standard for mobile apps that productivity apps could use
as a guide to accessibility and that governments and companies could hold app
developers accountable to.

~~~
malandrew
What advice would you give to someone developing a windowing system that
allows the arbitrary placement of "layers" in a 3D space for sighted users,
where each layer represents content such as an HTML document? I know where I
can find basic information for incorporating existing affordances like those
in WAI-ARIA, but I haven't a clue where one would start learning the basic
underlying principles for designing any fundamentally graphical system for
eventual use by the blind.

FWIW, I'm one of the software engineers at famo.us and I'm genuinely curious
about knowing how to start designing accessibility features normally found in
operating systems, rich application frameworks and windowing systems (qt, kde,
gnome, cocoa, wpf, UIKit, AppKit, etc.) from first principles.

At the end of the day, at famo.us we're fundamentally exploring and
implementing concepts in client-side JavaScript that have historically been
the domain of the user agent makers and been implemented directly in browsers
and accessibility tools like screen readers. With that in mind, do you know of
people/projects/efforts to implement accessibility features directly in
JavaScript? If not, what kind of accessibility features would you like to see
that could be implemented in client-side JavaScript?

At the end of the day, HTML Documents have always been linear in nature, but
applications are fundamentally non-linear, so a lot of the concepts I'm
familiar with don't exactly map to what we're doing with scene graphs.
Furthermore, the trend for interface designers to explore z-depth as an
affordance makes things simpler for sighted users, but I would imagine
complicates things for visually impaired users.

Lastly, besides the recently founded "a11ybay", are there any other notable
developer communities/meetups you know of in or around San Francisco where one
can meet engineers specializing in accessibility.

related:

[0] The Extensible Web Manifesto
[http://extensiblewebmanifesto.org/](http://extensiblewebmanifesto.org/)

[1] a11ybay [http://www.meetup.com/a11ybay/](http://www.meetup.com/a11ybay/)

~~~
jareds
Since my job is mostly Mainframe programming I don't have much experience with
accessibility from a developers point of view. You might want to try and get
in contact with people at
[http://www.paciellogroup.com/](http://www.paciellogroup.com/) though, I've
read there blog and it looks like they know what there talking about.

~~~
malandrew
Thank you. Will do.

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potatolicious
May be worth pointing out for iOS devs doing automated testing - KIF (and
maybe Frank, I'm less familiar with Frank) hijacks the accessibility labels on
controls in order to facilitate input injection.

This breaks a lot of the implicit/default blind accessibility behavior of the
OS.

If you're using KIF, please make sure, even if you're not putting extra effort
into accessibility, that at least you're not breaking the defaults with your
testing framework.

~~~
vanwesson
At the other end of the spectrum, there's Subliminal[1], which relies on
Apple's UIAutomation underneath, which in turn relies on the application's
accessibility information as-is, rather than hijacking it. Building up tests
using either UIAutomation or something that sits on top of it like Subliminal
will actually help you improve your app's accessibility at the same time.

[1]
[https://github.com/inkling/subliminal](https://github.com/inkling/subliminal)

~~~
kinofcain
This. One of the common stories in accessibility circles is "curb cuts", the
ramps from streets to sidewalks that allow disabled people easier access than
a stepped curb. They have utility for non-disabled persons towing roller
luggage, pushing strollers, pulling hand-carts, etc. While they were put in
place due to accessibility concerns, they benefit everyone.

Accessibility facilities that enable UI automation are the "curb cuts" of
software.

