Show HN: 92% of US city websites fail ADA accessibility

(accesslumens.com)

18 points | by a11ymaster 1 hour ago

8 comments

  • MisterTea 1 hour ago
    Title should have ADA in all caps as Ada is a given name. I see the opposite all too often when talking about the programming language Ada where people type ADA which can stand for the American Dental Association or Americans with Disabilities Act.
  • anonymousiam 27 minutes ago
    I expect the 92% number to rise as the number of anti-AI scraping measures and CAPTCHAs that are not compatible with assistive technologies continues to rise.

    https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/

    • a11ymaster 15 minutes ago
      That's a good point. It wouldn't be the first time security measures created accessibility problems. CAPTCHAs are a classic example. As organizations roll out more anti-scraping and bot-detection mechanisms, there's definitely a risk of introducing new barriers if accessibility isn't part of the design process from the start. The ideal outcome is being able to stop abuse without making life harder for legitimate users. I see a good number of scans from accesslumens also gets blocked because of anti-scraping and bot detection which is a good measure in this case
  • randyrand 25 minutes ago
    The tools used by the blind changed a lot in the past 3 years. The era of needing specific ADA accommodations for the blind is probably already over, if challenged in court.
  • romellem 41 minutes ago
    These are interesting results, but it reeks of LLM output. [ You made an interesting thing, why not describe it in your own words? I already read this all day.][1]

    [1]: https://bsky.app/profile/danabra.mov/post/3mpyd3esthc2m

    • a11ymaster 32 minutes ago
      Fair call. The research and analysis are mine, but I did use AI to help clean up and structure parts of the write-up. The writing could use more of my voice, I'll own that. Appreciate the feedback
  • willmeyers 1 hour ago
    I had to sift through a bunch of different state agency websites before Covid for a job. Most of these websites are nightmares when trying to find information or fill out a form. I can't imagine trying to navigate these sites by yourself with a disability. Honestly, if you're hosting a website on a .gov domain, you should be required to use USWDS (https://designsystem.digital.gov) or something equivalent.
  • PaulKeeble 38 minutes ago
    Honestly most of the world is inaccessible by design even the new things. Most people just don't think about the disabled at all and if they do its to talk about what they need and not actually to ask them what they need and include them. Ableism is the most prevalent and accepted bigotry in the world. There is also no movement to really fix this in the modern age, if anything its getting worse in a lot of places.
  • a11ymaster 1 hour ago
    [flagged]
  • aaron695 52 minutes ago
    [dead]