Ugh the gas-lighting that the CEO does is awful. Then your product sucks. If the users aren't understanding your product that's your failing not theirs, jackass. That's because end users aren't...
Ugh the gas-lighting that the CEO does is awful.
“We understand there can be a learning curve for users,” Roy Gefen, chief marketing officer at AccessiBe, said in a statement, adding that misunderstandings of how AccessiBe works has confused some users.
Then your product sucks. If the users aren't understanding your product that's your failing not theirs, jackass.
"Almost no one gives any specifics to actual websites that really don't work for them," [CEO Shir] Ekerling wrote in an email.
That's because end users aren't testers. They don't understand how to write a trouble ticket. And in fact they aren't writing a trouble ticket, they're alerting you that your product isn't working. You have 2 choices if you're sincere in wanting to fix the issue: 1) Walk them through filling out what's needed for an honest-to-goodness trouble ticket, or 2) listen to them rant for a while, write down or record what they say, then walk through the things they complained about yourself and see if you can see the problem. But of course, if your attitude is already that "they're holding it wrong", then you're not sincere about fixing problems for your actual users.
This is all just another case of the user not being the customer. The customer of the software is the company that buys it, not the user of the website, so there's the usual impedance mismatch at play here.
(I worked on Firefox's a11y implementation for a little while and remain friends with current and former members of that team, some of whom are blind.) This is really disappointing to me, but I...
(I worked on Firefox's a11y implementation for a little while and remain friends with current and former members of that team, some of whom are blind.)
This is really disappointing to me, but I think something that is even more disappointing is the fact that companies would rather spend money to throw somebody else's shitty product at the problem instead of just making their website more accessible to begin with.
It's not as hard to make a website accessible as these guys are making it out to be. A little bit of forethought and proper use of semantic HTML goes a loooong way.
As an example, don't use <div class="button">, just use an actual <button> tag!
(And when you make a site more accessible, the advantages often spill over into benefits for sighted users as well!)
I haven't worked with AccessiBe specifically, but I have had to install scripts like these before. Companies are terrified of the lawsuits that have been targeting online businesses over ADA...
I haven't worked with AccessiBe specifically, but I have had to install scripts like these before. Companies are terrified of the lawsuits that have been targeting online businesses over ADA compliance. Some of these suits are legitimate, and some are not.
The problem of course is that a single line of JavaScript doesn't fix anything. Having features to make font sizes bigger, or speak text aloud isn't helpful because screen readers already have these features built in. At most they show an intent to do right by the user, which may offer legal protection (I'm not sure), but doesn't actually help disabled people in any way. It's a CYA strategy.
Yeah...color me skeptical about the claim that you can build a website with zero attention paid to accessibility, then drop in a single line of code (which I assume is a JavaScript include) and...
AccessiBe markets itself on its website as a $49-a-month tool that helps companies protect themselves from not complying with the Americans With Disabilities Act by adding a single line of code to the backends of websites. AccessiBe also offers support for websites that are sued and claims to bring them into compliance.
Yeah...color me skeptical about the claim that you can build a website with zero attention paid to accessibility, then drop in a single line of code (which I assume is a JavaScript include) and magically your website is accessible. Just doesn't work that way.
Ugh the gas-lighting that the CEO does is awful.
Then your product sucks. If the users aren't understanding your product that's your failing not theirs, jackass.
That's because end users aren't testers. They don't understand how to write a trouble ticket. And in fact they aren't writing a trouble ticket, they're alerting you that your product isn't working. You have 2 choices if you're sincere in wanting to fix the issue: 1) Walk them through filling out what's needed for an honest-to-goodness trouble ticket, or 2) listen to them rant for a while, write down or record what they say, then walk through the things they complained about yourself and see if you can see the problem. But of course, if your attitude is already that "they're holding it wrong", then you're not sincere about fixing problems for your actual users.
This is all just another case of the user not being the customer. The customer of the software is the company that buys it, not the user of the website, so there's the usual impedance mismatch at play here.
(I worked on Firefox's a11y implementation for a little while and remain friends with current and former members of that team, some of whom are blind.)
This is really disappointing to me, but I think something that is even more disappointing is the fact that companies would rather spend money to throw somebody else's shitty product at the problem instead of just making their website more accessible to begin with.
It's not as hard to make a website accessible as these guys are making it out to be. A little bit of forethought and proper use of semantic HTML goes a loooong way.
As an example, don't use
<div class="button">, just use an actual<button>tag!(And when you make a site more accessible, the advantages often spill over into benefits for sighted users as well!)
I haven't worked with AccessiBe specifically, but I have had to install scripts like these before. Companies are terrified of the lawsuits that have been targeting online businesses over ADA compliance. Some of these suits are legitimate, and some are not.
The problem of course is that a single line of JavaScript doesn't fix anything. Having features to make font sizes bigger, or speak text aloud isn't helpful because screen readers already have these features built in. At most they show an intent to do right by the user, which may offer legal protection (I'm not sure), but doesn't actually help disabled people in any way. It's a CYA strategy.
Yeah...color me skeptical about the claim that you can build a website with zero attention paid to accessibility, then drop in a single line of code (which I assume is a JavaScript include) and magically your website is accessible. Just doesn't work that way.