Accessibility Becoming More And More An Afterthought?

By Misty Dawn, 17 May, 2023

Forum
Accessibility Advocacy

So, this is admittedly more a philosophy of blindness/conversation starter kind of post than a technical question, so, apologies in advance if it perhaps doesn’t fit the character of the forum.

So, my question: Does anyone else feel more and more like Apple Accessibility is taking a backseat to what sighted people want in favor of sighted people instead of making both our experiences as close to equivalent as possible? I mean that, it seems that, especially with the latest phones/iOS, accessibility is seeming more and more like an add-on whose processes are becoming far less convenient for us to use than they would be for sighted users. I’m thinking now specifically of Face ID and the absence of the Home button and the increased complexity of gestures for us compared to having a fingerprint scanner.

A certain Mr. Jaime Teh of Mozilla/Firefox accessibility fame has a phrase I like: “delightfully accessible” which I take to mean that, if something is “delightfully accessible”, it is not just accessible, but it is both accessible and easy/convenient to use so that people actually like using something instead of doing so begrudgingly. Thoughts?

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Comments

By Misty Dawn on Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - 14:37

To my very rude interlocutor above, I reply that, unlike so many here in our blind community, I advocate and I fight for blind and disabled equity and equality. I don’t just sit back and accept the status quo. Our blind community has a real problem with a strain of this passive attitude within it, unlike so many other parts of the wider disability community and, to my mind, it’s very much holding us back. What is wrong with us? Just because sighty says it automatically makes it right and something we should automatically accept as true? Let’s stop drinking the Kool Aid, guys! Come on!