[septerr]

Shouldn't websites start having an accessible version, like they have mobile versions of their sites? These would be free of too much JavaScript fu and go directly to the meat of the matter. In fact it is possible people with no physical challenges would start preferring these simpler faster versions too. Maybe in near future, the latest trend in web will be less JS, less graphics, less animation and more matter.

[ctoth]

This is an absolutely terrible idea that seems to refuse to die. No, it is not reasonable to put the accessible content in some sort of blind-only ghetto. Amazon do this, for instance, with a text-based version of their website. It makes it more difficult to maintain unless you've architected from the absolute beginning for it, and over time the text-based version becomes useless. Think of it from the perspective of someone adding new features to your webapp. Let's put it in HN terms -- you're building your MVP, launching in three days or something absurd... Are you really going to go build a text-based version of your website? Are you going to keep that updated? No. The only solution is to make the actual web, the one we all use, accessible. This doesn't mean changing what individual developers do so much as making sure that it's harder to be inaccessible than to be accessible with technical fixes, I.E. fixing Bootstrap so all Bootstrap sites are more accessible.

[septerr]

Why shouldn't companies (their developers) put in the extra effort needed to keep both versions up to date? They can come up with a framework for it. It may not necessarily mean two totally separate code base. You could design your framework so that both versions feed off the same backend. And don't they have to put in that extra effort to make sure their mobile versions are up to date?

Startups have a good chance to start their framework with accessibility in mind.

An MVP could ignore this aspect, because it is not the final product yet.

[ctoth]

Because they won't. I'm commenting from the perspective of a blind user--I know of what I speak. Note that I explicitly said you would have to architect for it, which you reiterated in your point. Doesn't it make far more sense to make the underlying tooling accessible rather than ghettoizing the content? My main point here is, if there's extra work to be done to make content accessible, that work simply won't be done. Hell, I wouldn't do it either -- a whole extra site template's worth for what? 1% of users? and I am totally blind.

[septerr]

I want to add further to my comment that I do not oppose the idea of making the web accessible by nature, but reading so far in this post and comments, it seems hugely difficult esp considering how much of the content/elements are manipulated by javascript. How are the screen readers going to cope with that?