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One could argue the accessibility team wasn't doing a very good job if Mastodon have done it better without a dedicated team. An application can and should hav

One could argue the accessibility team wasn't doing a very good job if Mastodon have done it better without a dedicated team. An application can and should have good accessibility by default without a dedicated team

szundi 4y ago
This. Even before Musk arrived there was a lot of debate about Twitter being overstaffed and departments are not producing any value at all. I don't know more or the details, but this is what sometimes I was reading years back.
- causi 4y ago
  That's the baffling thing to me. For the better part of a decade people have talked about Twitter being an overstaffed pack of idiots whose day to day largely consists of presiding over the fall of Western civilization. Now that they've been purchased by a jackass, however, they're suddenly a bunch of saints who've only been doing their best to hold back the tides of barbarism. I get the feeling that someone less of an asshole and more ideologically-aligned to the commentators could do the exact same housecleaning Musk is doing and they'd be cheering him on.
  - nootropicat 4y ago
    Hating Elon is in vogue now, anything else is irrelevant.
    - tchaffee 4y ago
      By your reasoning hating on Kevin Spacey is also in vogue. It's probably not in vogue. It's more likely that his own words and actions are resulting in lots of people not liking him. Imagine that. A world where your own words and actions have consequences.
      - concordDance 4y ago
        Based on talking to those who dislike him they're mostly pretty hating him for things he hasnt done, views he doesnt hold and traits he doesnt have (no, he isnt a success because he had an uber wealthy father who owned an emerald mine, it was a tiny share in a mine and his father contributed little to Musks business ventures). Musk is a driven, childish, stubborn, fairly intelligent, 90s era libertarian who really likes first principles reasoning and this leads to both success (SpaceX) and failure (Boring company).
        tchaffee 4y ago
        > Based on talking to those who dislike him So anecdotal evidence? > they're mostly pretty hating him for things he hasnt done, views he doesnt hold and traits he doesnt have So they have actual reasons to hate him. Superficial reasons, but you didn't once mention anything having to do with it being in vogue. Evidence of it being in vogue would be people who don't know why they hate Elon, but they do know their friends hate Elon. > no, he isnt a success because he had an uber wealthy father who owned an emerald mine, it was a tiny share in a mine and his father contributed little to Musks business ventures This is debatable by reasonable people. > Musk is a driven, childish, stubborn These sound like real reasons he could be disliked rather than it being your claim that it's simply in vogue or "traits he doesnt have" in your words. > who really likes first principles reasoning That's part of his PR and the image he tries to convey. He fails at it quite often because of his childishness and impulsive knee jerk reactions that he falls victim to on a regular basis. He is far more driven by emotion than by reason. I mean it's highly probable he owns Twitter now by being legally held to a poorly written contract he had no real intention of following through on. It ironically seems like neither he nor many of his customers want to be at this party he ended up at.
        causi 4y ago
        Musk is eminently hatable. He's also a competent businessman. The odds of him turning Twitter into Stormfront are very low, yet many are acting like it's already happened. What is the point of calling for a boycott of a company that hasn't yet done the thing you don't like?
  - lll-o-lll 4y ago
    Funniest stuff I’ve read today. So true!
LEDThereBeLight 4y ago
The UX can be better and the accessibility worse.
- robin_reala 4y ago
  Not really: the implication there is that people who need additional accessibility work are not users. The UX of a system is the sum totality of the experience of all users of the system, regardless of their needs.
  - LEDThereBeLight 4y ago
    If UX is the sum totality of the experience of all users of the system, it can be significantly better for most users but worse for a small number. I’ve never used the app so I have no idea, I’m just saying UX is more than accessibility, so you can have a great UX for most people while being useless for others.
- extra88 4y ago
  That's better UX for some people, or "SUX." https://twitter.com/thebillygregory/status/552466012713783297 https://twitter.com/thebillygregory/status/55246601271378329...
extra88 4y ago
No one is moving from Twitter to Mastodon because the latter is more accessible to people with disabilities. It's not, definitely not the main Mastodon UI (vs. 3rd party UIs). I think the article mentioned the dismissal of Twitter's whole accessibility team as a sign that Musk has no respect or understanding of what the fired people did or why it was important. Ditto for other dismissed teams, like those researching machine learning ethics. > An application can and should have good accessibility by default without a dedicated team I used to think that, I used to think that understanding accessibility was a part of doing a good job on front-end so people who care about doing a good job will address it. Now I think formal and informal education about is so bad about not including accessibility concerns as a part of creating interfaces that there's too much for people to unlearn. Everyone has some responsibility for the accessibility of the final product but few will give it enough time or consideration. Additionally, if an application is big enough to have a team working on it, that means there are some specialists in a variety of areas. With sufficient team size, that should include accessibility specialists who know what the right thing to do is or conduct research to make a decision about what the right thing to do is.

szundi 4y ago

This. Even before Musk arrived there was a lot of debate about Twitter being overstaffed and departments are not producing any value at all. I don't know more or the details, but this is what sometimes I was reading years back.

causi 4y ago
That's the baffling thing to me. For the better part of a decade people have talked about Twitter being an overstaffed pack of idiots whose day to day largely consists of presiding over the fall of Western civilization. Now that they've been purchased by a jackass, however, they're suddenly a bunch of saints who've only been doing their best to hold back the tides of barbarism. I get the feeling that someone less of an asshole and more ideologically-aligned to the commentators could do the exact same housecleaning Musk is doing and they'd be cheering him on.
- nootropicat 4y ago
  Hating Elon is in vogue now, anything else is irrelevant.
  - tchaffee 4y ago
    By your reasoning hating on Kevin Spacey is also in vogue. It's probably not in vogue. It's more likely that his own words and actions are resulting in lots of people not liking him. Imagine that. A world where your own words and actions have consequences.
    - concordDance 4y ago
      Based on talking to those who dislike him they're mostly pretty hating him for things he hasnt done, views he doesnt hold and traits he doesnt have (no, he isnt a success because he had an uber wealthy father who owned an emerald mine, it was a tiny share in a mine and his father contributed little to Musks business ventures). Musk is a driven, childish, stubborn, fairly intelligent, 90s era libertarian who really likes first principles reasoning and this leads to both success (SpaceX) and failure (Boring company).
      - tchaffee 4y ago
        > Based on talking to those who dislike him So anecdotal evidence? > they're mostly pretty hating him for things he hasnt done, views he doesnt hold and traits he doesnt have So they have actual reasons to hate him. Superficial reasons, but you didn't once mention anything having to do with it being in vogue. Evidence of it being in vogue would be people who don't know why they hate Elon, but they do know their friends hate Elon. > no, he isnt a success because he had an uber wealthy father who owned an emerald mine, it was a tiny share in a mine and his father contributed little to Musks business ventures This is debatable by reasonable people. > Musk is a driven, childish, stubborn These sound like real reasons he could be disliked rather than it being your claim that it's simply in vogue or "traits he doesnt have" in your words. > who really likes first principles reasoning That's part of his PR and the image he tries to convey. He fails at it quite often because of his childishness and impulsive knee jerk reactions that he falls victim to on a regular basis. He is far more driven by emotion than by reason. I mean it's highly probable he owns Twitter now by being legally held to a poorly written contract he had no real intention of following through on. It ironically seems like neither he nor many of his customers want to be at this party he ended up at.
        causi 4y ago
        Musk is eminently hatable. He's also a competent businessman. The odds of him turning Twitter into Stormfront are very low, yet many are acting like it's already happened. What is the point of calling for a boycott of a company that hasn't yet done the thing you don't like?
- lll-o-lll 4y ago
  Funniest stuff I’ve read today. So true!

LEDThereBeLight 4y ago

The UX can be better and the accessibility worse.

robin_reala 4y ago
Not really: the implication there is that people who need additional accessibility work are not users. The UX of a system is the sum totality of the experience of all users of the system, regardless of their needs.
- LEDThereBeLight 4y ago
  If UX is the sum totality of the experience of all users of the system, it can be significantly better for most users but worse for a small number. I’ve never used the app so I have no idea, I’m just saying UX is more than accessibility, so you can have a great UX for most people while being useless for others.
extra88 4y ago
That's better UX for some people, or "SUX." https://twitter.com/thebillygregory/status/552466012713783297 https://twitter.com/thebillygregory/status/55246601271378329...

extra88 4y ago

No one is moving from Twitter to Mastodon because the latter is more accessible to people with disabilities. It's not, definitely not the main Mastodon UI (vs. 3rd party UIs). I think the article mentioned the dismissal of Twitter's whole accessibility team as a sign that Musk has no respect or understanding of what the fired people did or why it was important. Ditto for other dismissed teams, like those researching machine learning ethics. > An application can and should have good accessibility by default without a dedicated team I used to think that, I used to think that understanding accessibility was a part of doing a good job on front-end so people who care about doing a good job will address it. Now I think formal and informal education about is so bad about not including accessibility concerns as a part of creating interfaces that there's too much for people to unlearn. Everyone has some responsibility for the accessibility of the final product but few will give it enough time or consideration. Additionally, if an application is big enough to have a team working on it, that means there are some specialists in a variety of areas. With sufficient team size, that should include accessibility specialists who know what the right thing to do is or conduct research to make a decision about what the right thing to do is.