[hulitu]

> Twitter’s Entire A11y Experience Team Let Go

A8y "A11y" s4s f1r accesibility. (Apparently "A11y" stands for accesibility). "Twitter is better in the app" is not a sign of "accesibility". Sign in is not a sign of "accesibility".

[koshergweilo]

Accessibility mostly means that the intended experience is preserved if you need to use tools like screen readers. Accessibility != User Friendly

[onion2k]

This isn't really true. There are three common "accessibility tools" that most apps aim for;

- alt text on images which is helpful for blind people (but also helpful for search and ML image categorisation)

- keyboard navigation which is helpful for users with motor problems (also helpful for power users)

- responsive design, which is very helpful for screen readers because it controls information flow (also helpful for users on devices that don't have the specific viewport specs that the designer aimed for)

Literally every accessibility feature you can name is like this - they all improve accessibility for disabled users and make things better for everyone else. Throwing out accessibility doesn't just hurt a minority of users who needed those features. It hurts everyone.

[eurasiantiger]

>keyboard navigation

Doesn’t apply to accessibility except in the sense that widgets must be operable 1) by sighted persons using the keyboard, and by non-sighted persons 2) using screen reader shortcuts or 3) accessibility devices such as game controllers or sip-and-puff controls mapped to those shortcuts.

[culi]

> Accessibility != User Friendly

No but many studies have shown that designs (in architecture as well as web and print design) that focus on accessibility are rated as having better UX by the general populace as well

Cutting a11y likely will also lead to a decline in UX in general

[koshergweilo]

I agree, but that doesn't extend to top level stuff like gating content behind logins. That's kinda what I was trying to say.

[spoils19]

> Apparently "A11y" stands for accesibility

This has been a common term since a few decades ago. No need to be snarky if you don't understand something.

[Jensson]

A11y is not very accessible which is funny. It isn't even a long word, they could just spell it out for you to make the writing more accessible.

[emj]

To day I learned it's called numeronyms they seems to be very infrequent out side of slang/tech, these are all words I think you should just know around here: I18n A11y l10n Y2K 420 a16z

If you are into making software for something more than just the naive "one market" your first introduction would be internationalization which should be the most widespread. When you make things for government in the EU/US you will most probably have laws demanding accessibility features. The problem isn't the numeronym but that so few people care about accessibility.

[BenjiWiebe]

Just guessing, but I suppose it's following the lead of i18n?

[chris_wot]

That actually is the commonly accepted industry term. Like i18n and l10n

[culi]

Haven't heard l10n. If anyone else is wondering, that's localization.

Tbh a11y is the main one that makes sense. I don't get what the point of i18n and l10n acronyms is besides saving us some typing and generally fitting into the vague category of "giving a crap about users often not considered in design"

[ryanschneider]

My possibly apocryphal understanding is that i18n and l10n both arose due to differences in American and British spellings of both words (z or s in the suffix). Simplifying “localization/localisation” to l10n saves more than 8 characters it saves 19.

[chris_wot]

It’s been terminology used since the 80s. Just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it hasn’t been around for a long time. It was coined by DEC.

It’s also the reason why Arabic text can be output on the screen, Ruby characters can be used and screen mirroring is usable for UIs that need RTL layouts. You really should look it up before criticising it.

It deals with things as small and as important as date formats, number seperators, punctuation marks, monetary formats, support for different calendar systems, capitalisation rules… you name it, it encompasses it.

It’s a genuine discipline. It’s used extensively in Windows, Mozilla and LibreOffice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_local...

[culi]

> Just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it hasn’t been around for a long time

idk if you're responding to the wrong user, but I never made the claim that it hasn't been...

[chris_wot]

“Haven't heard l10n.”

[culi]

That's exactly what I said!

[_djo_]

None of those are accessibility issues, they're product design choices.

[User23]

Accessibility is a product design choice. Accessibility isn't just for the disabled, it affects everyone.

[_djo_]

In that sense everything is a product design choice.

The point was that having a landing page that goes to a Sign Up option before showing all the content is not necessarily an accessibility issue, it's a decision made to drive sign ups and therefore revenue and it's not something the a11y team would've been in charge of. Blind people can still navigate the page provided the components are accessible in the same way sighted users can.