You Can't Opt-Out of Accessibility

Rant You Can't Opt-Out of Accessibility 1993 words I’m frustrated, and I’m angry at the state of accessibility on the web. I’m usually not much one for profanity, but I’m fucking pissed off. I’ve been worn down slowly by thing after thing - death by a thousand cuts. I feel powerless and overwhelmed, and I’m dismayed to know I’m not the only one feeling as such. Accessibility is so fundamental that this shouldn’t even be a post I feel compelled to write, yet I feel like some fanatical obsessive whenever I have to try convince someone to do something as simple as care about their fellow humans. A Lack of Value There is a look that certain individuals give you when you explain that a slightly different approach would be optimal for accessibility or that some changes are necessary. It’s a sort of sneer. The same thinly veiled look of discontent that one might pull while subtly investigating the dog poo smell originating from the base of their shoe as they arrive at a dinner party. They rarely say it aloud, but they’re thinking, ‘Who cares?’, ‘What does this matter?’. I get a look that implies I’m naïve for even suggesting accessibility to be a consideration. As if accessibility is some nerd thing that I’m juvenile to even proffer in serious work. I’m conscious I’ve had clients turned away from me because I’ve put such an emphasis on accessibility. I’ve seen the look on their faces and felt the wind leave the sails of the conversation as I make it clear that accessibility isn’t something I compromise on. I take pride in my work, and creating something inaccessible is not something I can be proud of in good conscience. Inaccessible work isn’t a minor inconvenience or something to be fixed later but is a strict blocker. An inaccessible product is a broken product. Yet, even the people who write the standards seem to have forgotten this, as we saw with the CSS carousel fiasco , which prioritised developer convenience over essential inclusive practices. The problems still haven’t been addressed, and the Chrome team only continues to double down . Alice Boxhall has gone into great detail about how standards have neglected to ensure accessible content and how great and continued efforts from accessibility professionals to identify failings and address problems have been approached not with intent to improve, but with a desire to disprove. No accessibility professional is offering this advice with even a hint of malice, and yet heels are dug in against them. Perhaps the entire industry is so jaded and cynical that the idea of someone genuinely caring and acting without ulterior motives seems an impossibility. After years and years of successive abstractions, we have prioritised the comfort of the person writing the code over the survival and agency of the people using it. Innovation that excludes people isn’t innovation; it’s just shiny exclusion. Accessibility is everyone’s responsibility, always. It should be baked into every part of...

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