[flossly]

I use Tailwind and have all kinds of "screen reader" directives in my templates.

Not sure if it helps, but if we get our first blind user I will gladly make some admends to make it more usable for them.

It seems that Tailwind is now blamed for the mess that is HTML/CSS. Tailwind certainly allows for accessible designs; it may not be the ideal solution, sure, but what we aim for is "good enough".

[embedding-shape]

> but if we get our first blind user I will gladly make some admends to make it more usable for them.

Isn't this slightly backwards? Why would blind users sign up if the platform isn't usable for them in the first place? It has to be usable for them for them to become users :)

[DANmode]

Notably, this is also how most businesses treat their sighted end-users…

[bsoles]

> Not sure if it helps, but if we get our first blind user I will gladly make some admends to make it more usable for them.

I have heard "we don't have blind customers" argument many times before. Apart from ethical issues that this raises, ADA requirements, technically, don't care if you have blind users or not. Accessibility is still required...

[shimman]

It's a great way to make an easy $10-30k as a law firm too when you sue them. Especially when you have definitive statements like "we purposely don't care about a11y until we get sued for it."

[throwaway24274]

It's not just blind people, but also people with reduced eyesight. As I'm getting older, I really appreciate good contrast and the possibility to zoom in without breaking the layout.

[48terry]

People always forget they're one unlucky event from losing their sight, hearing, dexterity, or more. Hell, like you say, even aging's enough to do it. Accessibility suddenly becomes a lot more important when you're on the other side of the "not a priority" talk.

[u_fucking_dork]

And how does tailwind or the structure of the underlying html of the page change or affect that?

[extra88]

If Tailwind lends itself to using pixels instead of relative units for things that should be relative (like font-size, line-height, etc.), that's a problem. For those users, the HTML elements matter less unless they're savvy users who have custom user stylesheets to selectively adjust the appearance of content instead of changing everything on the page by zooming (e.g. make links, buttons, paragraphs, list items bigger and/or a different font or weight).

[stefan_lec]

This is not true. Tailwind defaults to rem as the underlying length unit for almost everything. You have to go to extra effort in most cases to use px.

[extra88]

Note the word "if" at the beginning.

[reaperducer]

if we get our first blind user I will gladly make some admends to make it more usable for them.

Not good enough. You have to be accessible before it is needed in order to avoid legal liability.

And how do you expect to get a blind user if they already cannot use your product?

None of the doctors I build web sites for are currently blind. I know this because I talk to them regularly. But I still build the web sites for the future, when HR might hire a doctor or nurse or other person who is blind, or partially sighted, or has trouble with their muscles, or has difficulty distinguishing colors.

Doing the right thing isn't that hard. Not doing it is just lazy.

[ncphillips]

We use tailwind and are capable of building accessible websites without any issue. People could make all the same mistakes with CSS for accessibility. It’s the not knowing how to make accessible content that leads to inaccessible content, not the tool you use to implement the styling.

[flossly]

You call it lazy. I call it "focus" or avoiding pre-mature optimization.

I find the "legal liability" claim hilarious... I do better than 95% of the web: as I said I HAVE some screen reader directives (just did not test it), and labels to make the app more accessible.

[48terry]

> You call it lazy. I call it "focus"

Is this to be read that disabled people and their needs, or more directly from the replied-to comment, "doing the right thing", are not a focus of yours, flossly?

[LtWorf]

A former coworker of mine opened a meeting saying "we are so good, we care about accessibility". I had been complaining for months and finally a customer had said "we won't buy your product unless it complies to the law".

[DANmode]

Perhaps an accessible URL you’re associated with in your bio, to bolster your point?

[reaperducer]

I find the "legal liability" claim hilarious

You must have six million dollars laying around. Because that's the penalty Target paid for not having an accessible web site.

[_puk]

In 2008..

That wasn't even a regulatory penalty, but a class action by the National Federation of the blind.

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

[0x3f]

Sounds like you're kind of just talking your book though. Person who makes accessible sites suggests you need an accessible site. Blind people aren't the only ones who might need modifications. You could have an infinitely long list of adjustments for all kinds of disabilities, and tell me I'm lazy for not doing each of them. Why are blind people special?

[well_ackshually]

You are lazy for not doing accessibility adjustments, because accessibility isn't for blind users. It's for the deaf ones, the ones with poor eyesight, the ones with mental deficiencies, the ones with motor issues like Parkinson's, the ones browsing your site shitfaced at 4AM, and so on and so on.

Accessibility isn't a checklist to cover your ass for a percentage of the population: it's for everyone. It literally makes your website less shit. You slapping an aria-label doesn't fix things.

[0x3f]

Every moment you spend doing accessibility is a moment you spend not doing other things. You could argue it has a high RoI to do accessibility, fine, but that doesn't make it lazy _not_ to do it. Maybe I have even higher RoI/EV stuff to be doing.

[esseph]

You just told a bunch of potential and current customers that they're not worth the ROI.

Pretty sure they'll remember that, and they'll talk about it a lot.

[0x3f]

Picking subsets of customers to focus on is a totally standard part of running a startup or company in general, so this is not really news or any kind of threat.

You might as well tell me the suburban moms are not going to buy my developer tool because I've personally slighted them with the branding. Why would I care? I made my decisions knowing this.

In fact ditching low RoI customers is incredibly common and good startup advice.

[well_ackshually]

Accessibility is done while you do it. Not as an afterthought.

But if you're having a higher ROI writing absolute crap, feel free, it's not my website.

[0x3f]

You're just expressing a normative view here, it's not very interesting or informationally-dense. You care about accessibility more than I do. That doesn't make not doing it 'crap'.

[48terry]

> Maybe I have even higher RoI/EV stuff to be doing.

I mean, to readers of these comments, I think it's right there for you: 0x3f will take "higher ROI" over "accommodate and support disabled people".

[0x3f]

Yeah, thats explicitly what I'm saying so I'm not sure it needs repeating. That has very little to do with it being lazy though, is the point.

We were already implicitly discussing RoI when we were talking about 'legal consequences' above. This is how people decide between alternatives, generally.

[afavour]

> Not sure if it helps, but if we get our first blind user I will gladly make some admends to make it more usable for them.

How will you know if they are unable to use your site? They'll just leave.

[TonyAlicea10]

I mentioned blind but there’s lots of others. Folks sitting a desk whose eyesight are getting worse and are scared to say so for fear of losing their job, for example. This happens.

Side note: if you aren’t deliberately choosing semantic elements and instead dropping aria attributes onto a bunch of divs this is an anti-pattern.