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- Hacker News
- > You can't make investors have a hard on for a ramp that doesn't connect to the cloud.
Someone more inclined toward fraud than me should figure out how to make a cloud connected ramp as a way to get VCs to fund more ramps.
by boscillator - Spikes rise up if you tap your phone on the scanner and your rampbucks balance is too low.by asdff
- Specifically about accessible websites: I’m a web developer. At the request of a designer I work with, I spent a couple hours making a Claude skill that would run through WCAG AA and AAA, check contrast, screen reader experience etc. Since then, we’ve caught many little issues and a few big ones like adding a parallel screen reading element for a visually-oriented search tool. Building and testing the skill gave me better insight into WCAG, too.
I auto-run the skill when certain changes are detected in a branch and it takes just a few minutes. Recommended if your work shows up in browsers.
by 1123581321 - Could you share your skill? I've been working on a web app that I've been wanting to do a much more comprehensive accessibility audit on.by averynicepen
- Totally blind person. I once had this bright idea that the blind community could fix Linux into our perfect platform. I don't care all that much anymore about anything being fixed, foss or not. FOSS is everyone scratching their own itch, and if a developer who can see creates a program that scratches his itch but isn't accessible, but his itch is scratched, why would he then spend time fixing it up for the one blind Linux user that made an issue on Github about it?
For non-FOSS products, it's even worse. There is no way to tell Amazon that, for the past several months, their library view for Kindle on iOS was inaccessible to VoiceOver, with the books having no accessibility label, and the only way one can tell what book they're about to open is through VoiceOver's tiny on-device image describer model. Of course, in iOS 27 (beta currently) this is improved, but it shouldn't have to be. The last few versions of Kindle has begun fixing this, but last time I tried, about a week ago, it could easily break even just by my scrolling the view a few times.
So I don't even bother anymore. If Google can stand having poor Braille support on Android, fine, I'll use an iPhone. If Apple can stand having awful Google Docs support, which I use at work, on MacOS, I'll use Windows or even Linux where it works fine. If an image isn't described, I will put it through AI. If a page doesn't work well with a screen reader, I'll send it through AI too. If I want to play a video game where 99% of them do not have spoken menus, but I can enjoy the actual gameplay, I'll ask AI which menu option I'm on.
I've come to feel that life is so miserable when I and only a few others fight and fight for accessibility. If it works, it only works for a moment. So I just lean on AI because it can "see" a lot better than I can. Besides, people have used AI to make accessibility mods for Final Fantasy 1 through 6, the pixel-remaster versions. So when terminally angry people come at me for my use of AI, I just don't care anymore. Let them go blind and see how it feels.
by devinprater - The author seems to be screaming into the void here. The task of rebuilding infrastructure is mountainous compared to attempting new technological solutions.
I do agree with his rant about clean and semantic HTML being nessecary for accessibility. It's too often overlooked (as I scramble to check my sites for alt-text on images)
by Drakexor - Maybe, but regulations do have a widespread impact on issues like this. Disabled access is a legal requirement and so we have ramps, despite the extra cost. Asking for better regulation to lead to better ramps is reasonable.by magarnicle
- The imbalance is profound. I once tried to find a lawyer who could handle getting accommodations for a visually impaired person I knew. In practice, we probably just needed them to draft a sufficiently stern letter notifying the operator of their responsibilities under the ADA and it would have eventually gotten handled.
I spent a while trying to find law firms that specialized in this. If you do this kind of search 99% of the results are for law firms that specialize instead in defending companies against ADA suits and helping them evade their responsibilities.
I eventually was able to find exactly one law firm via contacting the bar. They weren't interested in talking to me - they said the person with the disability would need to contact them directly and pay out of their own pocket.
Years later that website still isn't accessible.
by kg - The real problem IMO is for most SV companies, the audience is the investors and the press, not the actual customer. Which I guess kind of makes sense structurally -- if the idea is to grow fast and exit, then you gotta know who butters your bread, but I think it's bad structurally for problem solving and building sustainable businesses. I know in the past "small" businesses got kind of denigrated as "lifestyle" businesses, but I think we structurally need more funding around things that solve real problems but aren't going to "CHANGE EVERYTHING!!!" and maybe only end up worth a few tens of millions instead of billions or trillions.by overgard
- I thought the idea behind exoskeletons and fancy wheelchairs was that they allow handicapped people to go more places, not to substitute for better infrastructure. I haven't seen any of the companies behind these devices claim that they make such improvements obsolete. And as the post mentions, such infrastructure is useful for anyone with luggage, a stroller, or a hand truck.
And yes, the cost of such devices is high today, but that's true of any new technology. The first print reading devices were huge machines that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Now the technology is free on your phone. Early hearing aids were bulky, expensive, and not much better than an ear horn. Now they're affordable, compact, and have handy features like bluetooth connectivity. My guess is that most of these prototypes will fizzle and go nowhere, but some will succeed, and the lives of disabled people will be improved by them.
Edit: Pangram says the entire post is written by AI. I've flagged it for misrepresenting the author. https://www.pangram.com/history/06093378-dcca-42d8-b683-5ed7...
by ggreer - Sure, but only if you want to do that. I have a wheelchair bound friend who uses a $20,000 tracked wheelchair when he goes camping (I've never been camping with him, so I'm not sure how he sets up his tent...). However most people in wheelchairs don't care that much about camping and are happy to do without - which they can do because the places they want to go don't need the expensive tools. For most places the cost to make something disabled friendly is minimal.by bluGill
- What they're getting at is that the individual level gadget based accommodations can lead hurdles against making the world generally more accessible to people with disabilities by putting the onus on the disabled person to buy those gadgets in people's minds, eg "oh we don't need to pay to put ramps here there's stair climbing wheelchairs", ignoring the cost of those devices. Yes they /eventually/ get cheaper but there's still plenty of people who can't afford even the cheaper versions and it takes decades to get there.by rtkwe
- > I thought the idea behind exoskeletons and fancy wheelchairs was that they allow handicapped people to go more places, not to substitute for better infrastructure. I haven't seen any of the companies behind these devices claim that they make such improvements obsolete.
They don't need to, and the might not even do that, but the boosters and the clipfarms are very much in on it. You don't see that "engagement" for continuous sidewalks and raised crosswalks despite how amazing they are.
And they're also very convenient as a way to avoid infrastructural improvements, you can point to disability dongles as a reason not to invest in it, that way you're conveniently not bearing the cost.
> And as the post mentions, such infrastructure is useful for anyone with luggage, a stroller, or a hand truck.
The problem is that's at best a post-hoc realisation, when that argument is made upfront it's pretty much always dismissed out of hand (very much blub adjacent), you can see it in pretty much every discussion about better walk/bike infrastructure.
by masklinn - > I don’t need a stair-climbing wheelchair that costs $30,000 and requires a maintenance crew. I need better doorknobs and/or a ramp. But a ramp is boring. You can't make investors have a hard on for a ramp that doesn't connect to the cloud. You can’t give a TED Talk about a ramp. You can’t get venture capital funding for a slightly wider doorframe.by calcifer
- I don't see why it's either/or. There are a lot more legacy doors and stairs especially around the world, than there are people who could be helped with a climbing wheelchair or exoskeleton frame. And there's some infrastructure that might not be possible to upgrade, for historical preservation reasons.
Maybe the tech will always be too bulky, but it could also be rented out on location when traveling.
- It's a really cynical way to attack people who are at least sort of trying to help.
And obviously the inventions of "a ramp" and "slightly wider door" already exist; those aren't a matter of invention, they're a matter of regulations and enforcement.
- A lot of problems are like that. They don't require anything fancy, just regulation, a budget or regular maintenance.by nicbou
- The author is simultaneously correct and incorrect.
The author is correct that simple and cheap changes such as ramps and door knobs are the logical fixes. And yes, based on personal experience, companies hate disabled people at the first sign that they will be an inconvenience to the company.
However, nature has no such things. If you enjoy nature and the outdoors, then user-specific equipment can provide capabilities not available through cheap alternatives. The prototypes shown are always marketing with some flair to it. Yes, the noise and bulk are terrible, but proof of concept can lead to improvements over time - eg you're looking at a some no-name competitor to the Model T (prototype suit), just imagine what the 2026 civic will look like (suits 75 years from now).
by giantg2 - If you are a disabled person who wants to visit the back country then the $30,000 (or more!) robot wheelchair is your only option. We shouldn't make all mountain trails ADA accessible. My local park system has a few accessible trails (the majority are not) that can get them to enjoy nature, if that isn't enough spend the money on the robot.
However I'm only willing to take the above position because there are plenty of other options. There are a lot of fully able people who live life without going to those remote places and don't miss it. I'm not fine with saying the local grocery store is not accessible - they cannot live without that. Most of what exists in a city should be accessible to everyone despite disabilities - the cost to provide this is not that high.
by bluGill - The stakes ("nature"-as-hobby vs. navigating the built environment that 99.999% of people depend on for survival) are very different, and they're also very different from the stakes of the mythologies ("we've solved blindness!") that sell these disability dongles to the public.
(And the closer you get to nature the more tools like a dumb cane make way more sense than anything digital and battery-powered anyway.)
I do think access to the outdoors is important, though.
by isityettime - > cheap changes such as ramps
My aunt has MS. It cost her nearly $10k to have a _used_ aluminum ramp installed for her house.
She can't come to my house because the gap between the buildings that leads to my door is too narrow for a wheelchair and would require is to get two different building owners, who are not our landlord, to agree to have their building modified to make room for it. It would easily cost 50k+ to actually rebuild two buildings and the sidewalk into a functioning ramp that is the correct slope for a chair.
by fishpen0 - I have a buddy who did his Human Factors PHd at wright state/wright patt nearly 15 years ago.
"Tech people" have a lot of lies they believe, about disabilities, about valid addresses, everything.
When he told me that schools for the blind train their student to fact check things like directions and not simply rely on a single source while navigating new terrain it clicked for me that the sighted have no clue and sympathy is more honest and less presumptive/simulative than empathy.
But to be sympathetic you have to listen to actual user feedback and do actual observation, with empathy you just get to use your imagination to put yourself in their shoes.
At least for some definition of sympathy and some definition of empathy.
- That seems pretty anathema to current trends. The underlying refrain is that users are stupid and cannot be trusted. Faster horses and all that.
Shut up monkeys, I will tell you what you want.
by 0cf8612b2e1e - Look no further than some of the comments on this very post.
Instead of trying to refute the OP, maybe people should listen to what he's saying.
by Hugsbox - > train their student to fact check things like directions
In college I had a blind guy ask me how to get to some building on campus. I looked up and the was sign of the building he wanted into. It still took me several tries to get him useful directions. I know that I can duck under that railing..., but how to explain that - I still don't know. I did eventually get him there, but it is a lot harder than you think and I only needed to get him about 5 meters.
by bluGill - And people have such a poor distinction of exactly where the limits lie.
My mother was blind. I was able to teach her how to glue up PVC. (For those of you who don't know--it's a don't-touch, less than a minute of working time and sets even faster if assembled and not moving.) Could she build things out of PVC? Yes. Could she repair a pipe? No. She needed everything perfectly arranged, an existing pipe wouldn't be perfectly arranged. And when my father died people wouldn't believe the big power tools in the garage were hers, not his. (Stuff where she could measure and clamp, hands only on the tool's controls.)
by LorenPechtel - The casual ableism is not unique to tech but I do notice its prevalence, both here and in my career.
I am slightly disabled physically, I've made comments here a time or two where someone will make a (probably unintentionally) dismissive comment like "This is easy, just do XYZ every day" and I'll make a comment like "lots of people cannot do XYZ every day due to disability" and there's a literal backlash of commenters like "well obviously we're not talking about them," like, what? Do you think disabled people don't exist? That seems to be the implication, it comes out casually so much in my daily interactions, some people are almost offended by the idea of it even.
by JohnMakin - The author is seeing that it's easier for one team to get backing (VC money, course credit, design awards, TED talk applause, etc.) for "solving" an accessibility problem than for us to enforce that entire industries follow good accessibility practices in new work and retrofit existing work. In theory industry-wide enforcement is the sort of thing legislation like the ADA solves, but obviously that hasn't been completely effective. Not sure how to fix it.
There was a subthread recently complaining about password managers and their UX problems. These aren't aimed specifically at "disabled" users, but I think it's a similar situation. We can't reliably enforce good standards for sign-in (whether that's just setting the autofill attribute correctly and choosing the correct event handlers for Javascript validators or something far more ambitious), so we expect a password manager to just deal with the web as it is. IMHO they work remarkably well given that constraint, but it's not optimal overall.
by scottlamb - There's a general problem on the web (and to a lesser extent computing in general) that UX is just widely terrible. I think part of this is because developers tend to work at the very edge of their competence, and getting something working at all is a major feat, with no room left over for making it work well. And part of it is developers or designers deciding they know better than everyone else. A lot of this was a solved problem back in the 80s: the platform provides a standard UI toolkit and a set of standard idioms, and all software uses them. But this lesson is ignored because developers and designers don't like it when their stuff looks and works just like everything else. Making buttons that look like everyone else's buttons means you don't set yourself apart, so we end up with custom buttons that look different and don't work as well. And, of course, are less accessible, because accessibility requires integration into the overall system that doesn't exist with a custom solution.
I was a Mac fiend back in the "beleaguered" days, and standard widgets and idioms were a big deal in that community. There was broad consensus that apps should all look and work the same, as much as that was possible. A button should be a button and a text field should be a text field no matter what program it was in. That all went out the window with the web, for no particularly good reason, and it's infecting non-web platforms at an alarming rate.
by wat10000 - Yeah, it kinda feels like a banal thing to hate on. "They're only doing this because it's easier to create a prototype invention than to redo all design standards and enforcement in the country!" I mean, yeah? What exactly is the implied alternative for the sort of individuals targeted by the blog post?