Look, I work in tech, so obviously the promise of smart sneakers and AI-powered toasters gets me kind of excited.
And accessibility overlays — I mean, what a great idea! It’s an AI driven solution where you take your website, in whatever accessibility condition it happens to be in, install the overlay, and presto you have an accessible website. Like if you could spray a can of magic ADA vapor on an old building and poof the doorknobs turn to levers and every staircase gets an elevator buddy.
Obviously it doesn’t totally/actually work; to wit, “FTC Order Requires Online Marketer to Pay $1 Million for Deceptive Claims that its AI Product Could Make Websites Compliant with Accessibility Guidelines” is not a good look.
Companies are essentially testing their AI solutions on real people in real time, with consequences that range from “non-Euclidean sandwich” to “our plugin made a website impossible to use” to “our self-driving cars killed a bunch of people.” Like — are there any adults in the room?
And, hey, to the aspect of this line of thinking that doesn’t lead directly to death and/or Lovecraftian hoagies, I’m going to grind an older axe here — there’s no magic pixel dust you can throw over shoddy work to make it good. If you want an accessible website (I mean, you do), you gotta build it right in the first place. Measure twice, etc etc etc.
Hat tips and sources
- “FTC Catches up to #accessiBe” on Adrian Roselli’s blog
- “Tesla car that killed Seattle motorcyclist was in ‘Full Self-Driving’ mode, police say” on CNN