1. Accommodating disabled people is in no way an insult.
2. Being disabled is a normal fact of life, also not an insult.
3. Accessibility affordances are not only for disabled people. Lots of people who wouldn’t identify as disabled routinely and gladly use a wide variety of accessibility features.
4. Having difficulty identifying actionable elements like buttons isn’t about reading anyone’s mind, and it isn’t a universal difficulty regardless of their presentation. The ability to customize it so it’s easier for you is inherently an accessibility affordance.
5. It’s entirely possible this setting (along with several others under accessibility) may be more helpful when needed if they were available in another location, but it’s also possible that would make the experience more confusing, and quite possibly for more people—especially for disabled people.
6. People may benefit from this information—quite a few here based on other comments—and it doesn’t deserve this kind of negativity.
7. With all of that in mind, while I’m keeping this response direct, I took the last point as a prompt to edit some of my own negativity out of it. I had a strong negative reaction both because I think accessibility is a universal good and because I appreciate accessibility affordances which help me. But that’s not a reason for me to be a jerk either.
1. Accommodating disabled people is in no way an insult.
No, but treating non-disabled people as disabled could be. Just like offering help to some disabled people triggers them.
I was going to respond to these numbered points in turn, but that'd be silly. My point is that having basic (previously standard) UI cues like buttons is important and stuffing that option anywhere is a poor choice. To put it under the accessibility options can (if we're even a tiny bit snarky) be seen as an insult - possibly to disabled people as well since it lumps a simple standard usability thing in with stuff designed for people with actual challenges.
It's also not cool for them to make critical UI cues an option when they also take away themes which are the ultimate option.
Ultimately they have given no valid reason to make so many things look the same when they used to be visually (and functionally) distinct.
Sorry for the trigger, I didn't mean any insult to anyone other than the UI designers.
> No, but treating non-disabled people as disabled could be. Just like offering help to some disabled people triggers them.
Putting this option in accessibility settings does no such thing. That assumption is what I take issue with, and what prompted all of my points above.
> My point is that having basic (previously standard) UI cues like buttons is important and stuffing that option anywhere is a poor choice.
I disagree. I often find designs with fewer borders and shapes easier to use—that is, more accessible to me—_because_ there’s less information for me to visually process to find what I’m looking for.
That said, I’d be perfectly fine if they inverted the default… or even just asked on first install/startup, with a note on where you can change it later if you change your mind.
I read the parent as implying that it's the designer who is thinking of “disability” as a begrudged requirement that is afforded an out-of-the-way configuration option so as to not inflict the ugly affordances on the rest of the population.
That seems like the least charitable interpretation of the facts I can imagine. Nonetheless if it’s true, Apple doesn’t just wing it when someone goes rogue on full design language redesigns.
2. Being disabled is a normal fact of life, also not an insult.
3. Accessibility affordances are not only for disabled people. Lots of people who wouldn’t identify as disabled routinely and gladly use a wide variety of accessibility features.
4. Having difficulty identifying actionable elements like buttons isn’t about reading anyone’s mind, and it isn’t a universal difficulty regardless of their presentation. The ability to customize it so it’s easier for you is inherently an accessibility affordance.
5. It’s entirely possible this setting (along with several others under accessibility) may be more helpful when needed if they were available in another location, but it’s also possible that would make the experience more confusing, and quite possibly for more people—especially for disabled people.
6. People may benefit from this information—quite a few here based on other comments—and it doesn’t deserve this kind of negativity.
7. With all of that in mind, while I’m keeping this response direct, I took the last point as a prompt to edit some of my own negativity out of it. I had a strong negative reaction both because I think accessibility is a universal good and because I appreciate accessibility affordances which help me. But that’s not a reason for me to be a jerk either.