[krschultz]

That's a strawman.

Making a web site or mobile application accessible is about making it parseable to the accessibility application that the user with disability has installed on their machine. A text to speech app needs to be able to access all the content. Put the right tags on fields. Add alt tags on images.

On Android, the Lint tool actually calls these things out. I have no idea what it feels like to use a screen reader, but I spent the time to actually put in those tags to enable it for the users of the app. It doesn't take long.

[nailer]

> Show me a virtual machine that I can test with

>> Making a web site or mobile application accessible is about making it parseable to the accessibility application that the user with disability has installed on their machine.

He wants access to a VM (or many VMs) with the accessibility application that the user with disability has installed

That doesn't sound like a straw man at all.

[krschultz]

"But the inability to replicate the experience in full, I think , inhibits catering to that demographic."

That makes me think of trying to see what it feels like to be inaccessible user, I'm picturing a VM that makes the screen fuzzy or something.

If all you want is a VM with the tools installed - that's pretty simple. I imagine every developer can make a VM with an OS in it, and there are plenty of free accessibility tools available for the OS of your choice: http://usabilitygeek.com/10-free-screen-reader-blind-visuall...