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“Nielsen has given everyone who sees accessibility as an unnecessary cost center a way out. Listen, they will say, the experts are telling us that AI is going to solve this, so let’s deprioritize the work now so we don’t duplicate our efforts.”–Matt May

buttondown.email/practicaltips… #a11y


We need to talk about Jakob

Jakob Nielsen woke up one morning last week and chose violence. If you haven’t read his recent post, “Accessibility Has Failed: Try Generative UI =...
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Jamie Teh reshared this.

in reply to Amanda Carson

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Jamie Teh

@acarson Totally agree. I've already had far too many conversations with well-meaning folks who see AI as the path to better accessibility across the board. Because apparently it's reasonable to pay many people to work on pixel-perfect design for "most users", but "you disabled folks" can just be served by that AI over there, accuracy, efficiency or delightfulness be damned.
@vick21 @zeldman @weirdwriter
@victor tsaran @zeldman @Robert Kingett backup @Amanda Carson
in reply to victor tsaran

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Jamie Teh

@vick21 You're entirely correct. I'm not saying that AI is the problem. The problem is that Jakob's article explicitly dehumanises the humans with disabilities. It effectively says: everyone else deserves a hand-crafted experience, but you disabled folks aren't worthy of that. @acarson @zeldman @weirdwriter
@victor tsaran @zeldman @Robert Kingett backup @Amanda Carson
in reply to victor tsaran

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Eric Eggert

@vick21 @weirdwriter No, actually they are very well aware of how accessibility works. They just see that “AI” can, for example, describe images. So they ask “why should we invest in training people and development time when ‘AI’ might be doing it for us good enough in a similar time frame”.

Companies want to make smart investments. Saving money because tech solves it is seen as smart, even when the outcome is suboptimal.

@victor tsaran @Robert Kingett backup
in reply to Eric Eggert

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victor tsaran

@yatil @weirdwriter I understand. I have heard similar arguments before, e.g. “why would a blind person care about fashion, cars, etc, and go to those websites?” The subject may have changed, but the underlying attitudes are the same. All I am saying is that these are just excuses 2.0, but in their nature not much different from what we have heard over the years. Not sure if I am expressing my point well though.
@Robert Kingett backup @Eric Eggert
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