Over the Australia Day long weekend my son played in a representative tournament, the outcome of the weekend was 2nd place and he got to experience playing in a very hard competition against boys 4 years older than him, who had a ton more experience, it was overwhelming at times and there was some tears, but his experience that weekend will help him grow... even if he doesn't think so right now.
I also gained some experience from that weekend. One of the boys on my sons team has a parent who is visually blind. I’ve known this for a while and have wanted to strike up a conversation to ask about their online experience. Up until now the opportunity has never really come up, I didn’t want to distract them while they supported their son. Thankfully my wife set up a conversation talking about online shopping, then she threw down a smoke bomb like batman, disappeared and left it to me to jump on in and talk accessibility.
I asked:
“What is your experience like when shopping online with a screen reader?”
The reply I got was:
“For the most part frustrating and shit”.
We talked about the general experience using a screen reader, listening to the tidal wave of “buttons” that get read out with no helpful labels at all.
“Button, button, button, button thats all I hear on websites”
Being a web developer in tune with accessible development I know what the problem is — obviously no helpful text has been supplied with the beautiful important icon used for that button.
But the most important thing that came from all that talking was a rhetorical question to me:
“Who is the internet made for?”
“Its meant to be for everyone but its not, why is it only people who can see are the one ones able to use websites, what about those people who cant, its shit it should be making my life easier…”
I wish I recorded the entire conversation there was a lot more to that answer and it was the most perfect example of frustration based around the usability of a website.
The MAIN way this person uses the internet is for grocery shopping, the essential shop that we all do every week to keep our family’s fed and happy. Yet the more we talked, the more I heard about all the hoops this person had to jump through just to buy some food for their family.
Making websites more accessible helps create more independence for everyone, not just people with blindness.
Instead of making accessibility an afterthought why not make it the first thing that is talked about when product owners, stake holders, designers and developers get into a room. There is no downside to an accessible website.
As I mentioned before, I could hear the frustration in their voice about their online experience. There is a lot of talk about user experience and not frustrating the user into rage quitting and closing the browser window.
I had a follow up question to the first one I asked:
“Which brand do you prefer to shop with?”
Their response:
“I avoid one in particular because of how annoying it is to listen to and navigate”
Someone lost a possible customer because of not thinking about all users.
On that cliffhanger, thanks for reading, lets keep the conversation going, please leave a comment or message me your thoughts on accessibility and GAAD.