It was a generic complaint channel: I don’t have access to the accessibility teams.
After telling them that I’d cleared by browser caches and tried different browsers they are now completely ignoring me - that no longer respond at all.
It’s true that enabling the ability to paste a password into a field won’t make things easier for that many people (it definitely will for a few though); on the other hand, it won’t actually make things harder for anyone.
It’s one of those situations where no one will be caused any difficulty by making it easier for a disadvantaged minority, so why not take the action to make it easier for them.
Unfortunately having the option does make life harder for several groups of users. That would include some with learning disabilities and some with a range of visual impairments. For example having the ability to copy/cut paste regularly confuses screen readers in terms of what text is being selected and where it’s being placed.
There is a cliche in the world of accessibility that some changes make sense because they improve life for everyone. It’s a convenient aphorism but patently untrue. For example, much as I would like slightly increased sans serif fonts on everything, that sometimes extends documents unnecessarily over pages and can cause issues for people with concentration issues because of pain or the inability to reliably track words, paragraphs etc.
When you have to balance such considerations with best practice for security then it’s a difficult and nuanced decision making process.
I’m not clear why you say you don’t have access to their accessibility teams. The info. is all public domain. They have teams for iOS, Android, Windows etc. and you’ll find yourself having a far more sensible conversation.
The ability to paste into this one specific field doesn’t add additional confusion as you can already past into 2 of the 3 relevant fields, just not this one!. To maintain consistency and have cut and paste disabled on all fields would make sense, as would having cut and paste enabled on all fields. To mix and match on different fields IS a potential source of confusion (and I’m definitely not suggesting that!). (Incidentally I used to comment on dyslexia [and ADHD] accessibility for a well known high street brand, so I am familiar with negotiating with other potentially disadvantaged groups - consistency was usually a principle on which most agreed!)
I was unaware that the communication point details for the accessibility teams was in the public domain (I can’t always successfully circumvent my dyslexia, and sometimes I do miss things) - so @mikehughescq , thank you I’ll pursue this with them.
Yes, absolutely agree. Consistency is all anyone wants. If you ever use Metrolink in Manchester then that’s a decent example of consistency and accessibility, albeit there’s lots of retrofitting still going on. I played a decade long role in that but stepped back when the group itself managed to breach EA 10 in terms of individual RAs at the start of lock down.
Must admit C4 had me on edge with the usual statement about compliance with international web accessibility standards. Almost certainly a guarantee they don’t talk to real users too often. The fact they have discrete accessibility teams per platform is promising though.
I feel your pain in respect of missing stuff. As a child I used to read ludicrous amounts but often struggled to follow fiction, which sometimes made sense and sometimes didn’t. Took me years to understand that my eyes flicked off text randomly and alighted where they fancied. Missed words, paras and sometimes entire pages. Joyfully the harder I look at something the worse it gets. The effort to see actually makes seeing harder. Spell checking stuff in places like this is a nightmare. My spelling is excellent. My ability to pick up when my device has decided I’ve typed something else really isn’t.
Highlight of the last month was mailing Amazon vouchers to a friend for his two teenage boys to spend on Christmas “prezzies”. iOS insists that I have written “prozzies”.