a11y (digital accessibility)

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Thinker33

We need to talk about Jakob (buttondown.email)

submitted 7 months ago by Thinker33 to c/a11y

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I think this article does a good job of highlighting why Jakob Nielson's take that generative AI will fix accessibility is misguided.

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[–] kellyaster 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I'm inclined to agree. Nielsen comes across as out of touch, uninformed, and so elitist that it makes me feel gross to read. Generative UI certainly looks like it's going to be a thing, but that doesn't mean accessibility won't matter when it becomes widely used; on the contrary, it still matters because your rendered html still needs to be formatted correctly if you want it to be interpreted accurately by assistive technology. And even if it's powered by AI, assistive tech still has to compare what it parses against standards if it's going to return accurate, functionally accessible results. And guess what? The standards already exist! They're called WCAG, they've been followed by the so-called "accessibility movement" for years. Like, I'm sorry, Jakob, I know it's 2024, but you still have to use headings properly and put navigation items in a list. WCAG isn't just an accessibility thing; it's the frickin rules of the web.