I believe that the #accessibility of everyday tech for #screenReader users is on a slow but consistent decline.
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@menelion I can kind of see it. Tools like screen recognition on iOS and VOCR on the Mac, and being able to explore things that might not be in the focus order, can be powerful tools.
That said: I still find that iOS and Android do a relatively poor job of handing control over to the user to find/operate things that are inaccessible. Object nav in NVDA and browser developer tools are more powerful than screen recognition or touch exploration, but understandably perceived as harder to use. @pixelate
@jscholes These flaws are hard to fix by DIY in graphical user interfaces, but in terminal based computing it is more easy. That is why I believe that the terminal is an underrated platform for blinds, also offering a much better base for predictable interaction in general.
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@jscholes Yeah, totally all this. Thanks for reminding me I need to try explorer patcher on my win 11 box to get first letter navigation back in the system tray.
As an aside I keep seeing people say Windows is more efficient to navigate than MacOS because of not requiring interaction and having more keyboard shortcuts. Which I think is true... In older Windows apps, back when MS and other developers cared about this more. Having a menu bar with shortcuts which gave apps a good hierarchy, and having working first letter nav does a lot. But then you have all the modern apps, where you have none of this. So your only option is to tab, maybe 10, 20 times to find the thing you need. Good example of this is the Windows 11 settings app which also has collapsable section buttons that you have to expand for added keystrokes. Because VoiceOver was designed for an OS that really sucked at keyboard navigation, it has tools to deal with shit like this. Windows screen readers are way nmore passive about navigation because Windows was historically way better at this, maybe with the exception of Narrator which borrows a lot from VOiceOver. I'd kill for a screen search or a browser style nav mode for NVDA that worked everywhere and not just on the web.
Oh and this is not to say modern MacOS doesn't have its own papercuts. Any app built with catalyst feels super janky with focus management and text fields sometimes read very weird. Not to mention all the other little VO things.
@pitermach @jscholes Enhanced Object navigation helps a bit with this provided you know the first letter of the object you're looking for but basically yes, Windows has messed up a lot of things that used to give it an edge over Mac OS productivity-wise.
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@jscholes Yeah, totally all this. Thanks for reminding me I need to try explorer patcher on my win 11 box to get first letter navigation back in the system tray.
As an aside I keep seeing people say Windows is more efficient to navigate than MacOS because of not requiring interaction and having more keyboard shortcuts. Which I think is true... In older Windows apps, back when MS and other developers cared about this more. Having a menu bar with shortcuts which gave apps a good hierarchy, and having working first letter nav does a lot. But then you have all the modern apps, where you have none of this. So your only option is to tab, maybe 10, 20 times to find the thing you need. Good example of this is the Windows 11 settings app which also has collapsable section buttons that you have to expand for added keystrokes. Because VoiceOver was designed for an OS that really sucked at keyboard navigation, it has tools to deal with shit like this. Windows screen readers are way nmore passive about navigation because Windows was historically way better at this, maybe with the exception of Narrator which borrows a lot from VOiceOver. I'd kill for a screen search or a browser style nav mode for NVDA that worked everywhere and not just on the web.
Oh and this is not to say modern MacOS doesn't have its own papercuts. Any app built with catalyst feels super janky with focus management and text fields sometimes read very weird. Not to mention all the other little VO things.
@pitermach @jscholes Even though this shouldn't be on an add-on to solve, the ObjPad add-on helps quite a bit.
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I believe that the #accessibility of everyday tech for #screenReader users is on a slow but consistent decline. Operating systems, browsers, messaging apps, email clients, even command line tools.
These things are not being replaced with more #accessible alternatives, but nor does the investment exist to stop the rot within the current options.
This in itself is concerning, particularly as it mirrors tech trends more broadly. But what I worry about quite a bit is what it does for user expectations.
What happens when generations of people grow up with inefficient keyboard access models, faux desktop apps, and a thousand tiny papercuts here and there? When the new baseline is worse than it was before, it takes that bit more effort to imagine and advocate for best rather than just better.
@jscholes And then when things finally get to a decent state after years of advocacy, they're dropped in favor of something with even worse accessibility and the cycle begins again. It's like people never learn because they're so focused on chasing the newest shiny thing.
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I believe that the #accessibility of everyday tech for #screenReader users is on a slow but consistent decline. Operating systems, browsers, messaging apps, email clients, even command line tools.
These things are not being replaced with more #accessible alternatives, but nor does the investment exist to stop the rot within the current options.
This in itself is concerning, particularly as it mirrors tech trends more broadly. But what I worry about quite a bit is what it does for user expectations.
What happens when generations of people grow up with inefficient keyboard access models, faux desktop apps, and a thousand tiny papercuts here and there? When the new baseline is worse than it was before, it takes that bit more effort to imagine and advocate for best rather than just better.
@kaveinthran @jscholes agree with you and your perspective and worry about the same
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I believe that the #accessibility of everyday tech for #screenReader users is on a slow but consistent decline. Operating systems, browsers, messaging apps, email clients, even command line tools.
These things are not being replaced with more #accessible alternatives, but nor does the investment exist to stop the rot within the current options.
This in itself is concerning, particularly as it mirrors tech trends more broadly. But what I worry about quite a bit is what it does for user expectations.
What happens when generations of people grow up with inefficient keyboard access models, faux desktop apps, and a thousand tiny papercuts here and there? When the new baseline is worse than it was before, it takes that bit more effort to imagine and advocate for best rather than just better.
@jscholes Yeah I worry about this as well, especially with the rapid proliferation of AI vibecoding. It's already affecting me, I don't tend to try new software as much anymore because I automatically expect that it won't be accessible, and then I'm surprised when I turn out to be wrong.
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If you're wondering what sort of #accessibility issues I mean when I say "papercuts," here are some examples:
First-letter navigation not working in commonly used parts of the Windows 11 UI, like "open with" dialogs and the system tray.
NVDA's browse mode suddenly becoming inactive and inoperable when transitioning between webpages.
Multi-line textareas being reported as "blank" in Chrome and Chromium-based apps.
Focus moving to the message list instead of the next or previous email when deleting content in Thunderbird.
These are things that can and should be fixed. But if or when they are, it'll be easy to write up another list of small, non-blocking issues that but nevertheless contribute to a frustrating, unproductive experience.
@jscholes The problem is that no matter how small the issues are, they still take the same level of effort to report. A thousand tiny paper cuts require a thousand times the time and energy as one giant blocker. It's just constant, never-ending irritation with no energy to do anything about it.
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If you're wondering what sort of #accessibility issues I mean when I say "papercuts," here are some examples:
First-letter navigation not working in commonly used parts of the Windows 11 UI, like "open with" dialogs and the system tray.
NVDA's browse mode suddenly becoming inactive and inoperable when transitioning between webpages.
Multi-line textareas being reported as "blank" in Chrome and Chromium-based apps.
Focus moving to the message list instead of the next or previous email when deleting content in Thunderbird.
These are things that can and should be fixed. But if or when they are, it'll be easy to write up another list of small, non-blocking issues that but nevertheless contribute to a frustrating, unproductive experience.
@jscholes Yep, that. First letter navigation is the particularly annoying one for me, it's like Microsoft for some reason forgot that was ever a thing. Whenever I hear that a part of Windows 11 is going to be redesigned I immediately go, oh great, now time to figure out which accessibility bugs we'll have to deal with and which conventions that worked for years no longer will.
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@jscholes Yep, that. First letter navigation is the particularly annoying one for me, it's like Microsoft for some reason forgot that was ever a thing. Whenever I hear that a part of Windows 11 is going to be redesigned I immediately go, oh great, now time to figure out which accessibility bugs we'll have to deal with and which conventions that worked for years no longer will.
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@Bruce @techsinger @simon Was this sent in response to the intended thread? If so, I'm struggling to understand its connection to the topic at hand.
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@Bruce @techsinger @simon Was this sent in response to the intended thread? If so, I'm struggling to understand its connection to the topic at hand.
@jscholes @techsinger @simon I was replying to one specific message in that thread, and that message was deleted later.
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@jscholes @techsinger @simon I was replying to one specific message in that thread, and that message was deleted later.
@Bruce @techsinger @simon Ah, I see. Must've missed it. Appreciate the explanation!
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If you're wondering what sort of #accessibility issues I mean when I say "papercuts," here are some examples:
First-letter navigation not working in commonly used parts of the Windows 11 UI, like "open with" dialogs and the system tray.
NVDA's browse mode suddenly becoming inactive and inoperable when transitioning between webpages.
Multi-line textareas being reported as "blank" in Chrome and Chromium-based apps.
Focus moving to the message list instead of the next or previous email when deleting content in Thunderbird.
These are things that can and should be fixed. But if or when they are, it'll be easy to write up another list of small, non-blocking issues that but nevertheless contribute to a frustrating, unproductive experience.
@jscholes I reported that Thunderbird issue a few days ago, I was a bit concerned it was just me. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2019407
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@jcsteh @jscholes The main difference is that you yourself use Firefox daily with NVDA, and if you introduce a major bug that tests don't catch yet, you'll notice it quickly yourself. When I look at chromium and the bug it introduces and sometimes keeps around for months or even years, it becomes apparent that there are no serious screen reader users on those teams to be annoyed by the bugs. Like all the hideous text bugs Chromium has on the various platforms. And no, even at its worse days, Firefox text bugs were never so annoying.
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@jcsteh @jscholes I agree. And I am grateful that you usually fix the Mac bugs I file fairly quickly, too.
Firefox is by far the most stable browser on Mac nowadays, what accessibility is concerned. Apple have had some huge problems in Safari on the Mac lately, not so bad on iPhone, but Firefox has been mostly very stable. And I only use an un-googled version of Chromium if I absolutely have to, because their accessibility bugs are just hideously annoying. Same goes for Electron apps.
