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sideproject | 2 years ago

I once sat on a zoom call with a vision impaired user to do some accessibility testing on our site.

First, it was enlightening for me to see how she navigated through our site using her screen reader.

Second when she landed on our booking page we got so embarrassed because she couldn’t use our date picker. A basic HTML version would have done the job. But a few weeks back we had debated over which fancy jquery date picker plugin we should use without considering the impact. It was fancy alright, yet it wasn’t usable at all for this user.

I learned and felt many things that day as an engineer. Thinking in depth, across many different personas is a difficult thing to do, let alone building a tool that works well.

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lopis|2 years ago

At my job we worked with an accessibility agency to train our devs and designers on web accessibility. It's really enlightening to see someone navigating smoothly with just sound or with 800% zoom. And very embarrassing when your menus just repeat the same "list item" label 5 times because of poor use of semantic HTML.

Yodel0914|2 years ago

There's nothing like working on screen reader compatibility to build a bit of empathy.

johnnyworker|2 years ago

Here is an idea:

The devs of a site (or an application) are in a video call, with screen sharing or whatever is useful, with a user who has accessibility needs and is using their site/program. A bunch of other devs sit in on it, muted, just learning. Then the devs throw some money in the pot and the user who did the testing gets paid for their time. Everybody wins.

Oh, and if all participants agree, the stream is made available for subscribers, and then the user gets royalties off that, too.

Does this exist? Can someone make it?

stemlord|2 years ago

You just described what is known as "user testing". They can happen in person, like a focus group, or remotely. Companies reach out to the public for "random" users that fit the given criteria and are paid for their time. You can also use a 3rd party service who will pair you with random testers, for example https://www.usertesting.com/

tripdout|2 years ago

Not a video call but a recording made by the user, and not specifically for accessibility testing, but UserTesting is something similar like that.

ryathal|2 years ago

It's been a while, but I'm not convinced there is a truly accessible date picker out there. Allowing manual typing of the date seems like the best and only viable option.

SoftTalker|2 years ago

Also just typing the date manually is almost always faster than using a date picker. Or at least that's how I perceive it, which is all that matters. I hate apps that force me to take my hands off the keyboard and use the mouse.

uses|2 years ago

<input type="date"> is a pretty good option, and it lets you type in the date manually if you'd like.

tjoff|2 years ago

Somewhat agree, but when you say typing the date you mean ISO 8601, right?

That is the only sensible format for dates, and while all developers probably agree on that it isn't a given that all your users will.

dgellow|2 years ago

That makes me think, how does one learn to use a screen reader? (Or alternatives for other handicaps)

It seems fairly technical and challenging to learn, but I feel it would make sense for abled engineers to practice using those.

I personally wouldn’t even know where to start, I only enabled the screen reader a few times by mistakes and have no idea how I could learn to be effective with it if I need to at some point in my life.

dirtyid|2 years ago

I've been learning screen readers in my spare time because it seems like a nice screen off way to browse content in bed. It's servicable and maybe even viable way to work if more of the web was tailored for it.

justsomehnguy|2 years ago

Just turn off your monitor.

rexpop|2 years ago

> It was fancy alright

I don't want to overdo it with high-falutin' theorizing, but I think your firm's definition of "fancy" might be missing some crucial aspects, or maybe "fancy" isn't the right term. Maybe it was "flashy," or "gaudy," or "decorative"? Maybe it was "branded"? Or did it actually offer sighted users a more effective UX?