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Jakob Nielsen's problematic claims about accessibility
Jakob Nielsen wrote a post in which he states “the accessibility movement has been a miserable failure’ (his words) and claims that generative “AI” can somehow magically remove the need for accessibility research and testing.
Note, there's currently no evidence that what he proposes is desirable (by users) or possible (with the tech). It is, however, clear that testing with users and meeting WCAG is desirable and possible.
Léonie explains Nielsen needs to think again:
Nielsen thinks accessibility has failed.
Nielsen thinks that generative AI will make my experience better. Nielsen apparently doesn't realise that generative AI barely understands accessibility, never mind how to make accessible experiences for humans.
I think Nielsen needs to think again.
Matt May said we need to talk about Jakob:
This part of the post isn’t so much an argument on the merits of disabled access as it is a projection of himself in the shoes of a blind user, and how utterly miserable he thinks it would be. At no point in any of this—again, classic Jakob Nielsen style—does he cite an actual blind user, much less any blind assistive technology researchers or developers
Per Axbom wrote:
the published post is misleading, self-contradictory and underhanded. I'll walk you through the whole of it and provide my commentary and reasoning.