> businesses providing products and services on the Internet should be required to make everything accessible to people with disabilities.
On one hand, it's best for everyone if people who are disabled can lead a "normal" life, to the extent that they are physically able to do so; and it's really nice if the products they interact with, including websites and software, are as easy as possible for them to use. Particularly if the developers of said products can make them easy to use at minimal cost.
On the other hand, it seems like what he's proposing sounds an awful lot like burdensome government regulation, especially from the point of view of a bootstrapped startup that's pushing the innovation envelope.
Why can't the free market solve these problems? If company X doesn't serve some large market (such as people with a particular Internet-usage-affecting disability like blindness), then company Y can eat their lunch by making an effort to do so. If X offers an API, third parties can wrap the functionality. Or you could proxy X's site and make substitutions for problematic constructs.
Developer education should be a priority as well. As a software, app or web developer, what practical steps can I take to make user interfaces accessible?
People with knowledge in this area should be building automated tools to evaluate my UI for common accessibility sticking points like images missing alt tags. Maybe they are, and I just haven't heard of them; that means they need to do a better job of marketing. If someone reading this is aware of such tools, consider an HN submission.
It would also be really nifty if there was an easy way (preferably a built-in feature or open-source program) in every OS and browser to render distorted output to represent the way a nearsighted, colorblind or completely blind person would perceive the world. Well, I guess the latter could easily be simulated by unplugging the monitor cable...but a blind person would probably have, in addition to complete lack of video output, some sort of auxiliary output like text-to-speech or something that a non-disabled (abled?) person wouldn't have. The blind-person-simulation-test-environment should include this text-to-speech feature. And of course you need an easy way to switch the feature on or off rapidly (workflow would be: Switch to simulation environment, notice some feature isn't working, switch back to normal work environment to write more code to fix broken feature, switch back to sim to see if the fix works, etc.)
On one hand, it's best for everyone if people who are disabled can lead a "normal" life, to the extent that they are physically able to do so; and it's really nice if the products they interact with, including websites and software, are as easy as possible for them to use. Particularly if the developers of said products can make them easy to use at minimal cost.
On the other hand, it seems like what he's proposing sounds an awful lot like burdensome government regulation, especially from the point of view of a bootstrapped startup that's pushing the innovation envelope.
Why can't the free market solve these problems? If company X doesn't serve some large market (such as people with a particular Internet-usage-affecting disability like blindness), then company Y can eat their lunch by making an effort to do so. If X offers an API, third parties can wrap the functionality. Or you could proxy X's site and make substitutions for problematic constructs.
Developer education should be a priority as well. As a software, app or web developer, what practical steps can I take to make user interfaces accessible?
People with knowledge in this area should be building automated tools to evaluate my UI for common accessibility sticking points like images missing alt tags. Maybe they are, and I just haven't heard of them; that means they need to do a better job of marketing. If someone reading this is aware of such tools, consider an HN submission.
It would also be really nifty if there was an easy way (preferably a built-in feature or open-source program) in every OS and browser to render distorted output to represent the way a nearsighted, colorblind or completely blind person would perceive the world. Well, I guess the latter could easily be simulated by unplugging the monitor cable...but a blind person would probably have, in addition to complete lack of video output, some sort of auxiliary output like text-to-speech or something that a non-disabled (abled?) person wouldn't have. The blind-person-simulation-test-environment should include this text-to-speech feature. And of course you need an easy way to switch the feature on or off rapidly (workflow would be: Switch to simulation environment, notice some feature isn't working, switch back to normal work environment to write more code to fix broken feature, switch back to sim to see if the fix works, etc.)