> This is very much from a sighted person's point of view. When you use screen readers, you can switch to a 'links' navigation mode and only go through links, in which case all you'd hear would be "click here", "Amaya website" and "Amaya".
I think this is a UX problem with screen readers, and actually probably something LLMs might massively help with. If I was designing something for screen readers, I would probably have interactive elements within a context window, i.e.:
<context>To download W3C's free editor/browser Amaya, go to the <a href="..">Amaya Website</a> and select the latest version on the home page.</context>
The user would hear "Amaya Website" and would then have some ability to also hear the link context. For pages missing the context windows some attempt could be made to create one automatically.
On this page itself, within the box "Success Criterion (SC)" the listener would hear "purpose of each link", "programmatically determined link context", "ambiguous to users in general". The last one is, well, ambiguous to users in general. Even as a sighted person, without selecting it, I wouldn't know what it is actually going to link to.
I would say that the web is generally actively hostile towards screen readers, and not because of a lack of WCAG adoption. You have text in images (not just static, but also GIFs), JS heavy components, delayed loading, dependant interactions (such as captchas, navigation drop downs, etc), infinite scrolling - the list just goes on. The web is primary a highly visual space and likely will remain so.
I don't think the EU's accessibility act is actually enforceable [1]. Unlike cookies, some of the changes required are massive, to the point where it may not even be worth existing in the EU market if it's enforced.
> Incorporating captions into video content, as well as providing audio descriptions and transcripts
Even proving you are compliant is a lot of cost, which includes audits and training staff. You can always trust the EU to regulate itself out of being competitive.
I think this is a UX problem with screen readers, and actually probably something LLMs might massively help with. If I was designing something for screen readers, I would probably have interactive elements within a context window, i.e.:
The user would hear "Amaya Website" and would then have some ability to also hear the link context. For pages missing the context windows some attempt could be made to create one automatically.> See also https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/link-purpose-in-... , also keeping in mind that since June, the underlying WCAG guideline is a EU-wide legal requirement for company websites.
On this page itself, within the box "Success Criterion (SC)" the listener would hear "purpose of each link", "programmatically determined link context", "ambiguous to users in general". The last one is, well, ambiguous to users in general. Even as a sighted person, without selecting it, I wouldn't know what it is actually going to link to.
I would say that the web is generally actively hostile towards screen readers, and not because of a lack of WCAG adoption. You have text in images (not just static, but also GIFs), JS heavy components, delayed loading, dependant interactions (such as captchas, navigation drop downs, etc), infinite scrolling - the list just goes on. The web is primary a highly visual space and likely will remain so.
I don't think the EU's accessibility act is actually enforceable [1]. Unlike cookies, some of the changes required are massive, to the point where it may not even be worth existing in the EU market if it's enforced.
> Incorporating captions into video content, as well as providing audio descriptions and transcripts
Even proving you are compliant is a lot of cost, which includes audits and training staff. You can always trust the EU to regulate itself out of being competitive.
[1] https://www.wcag.com/compliance/european-accessibility-act/