WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

React and screen reader accessibility?

for

From: Brandon Keith Biggs
Date: Apr 26, 2017 7:49PM


Hello,

What is going on with React and screen reader accessibility? Apparently it
has all kinds of hooks for 'accessibility-. Why would someone do this? Why
can't react avoid using aria and use native widgets instead? Why is
accessibility optional? Why is accessibility something that is more complex
that a developer needs to worry about?

https://code.facebook.com/posts/435862739941212/making-react-native-apps-accessible/



https://github.com/necolas/react-native-web/blob/master/docs/guides/accessibility.md



This doesn't seem to work based off the few react examples I have seen:

https://facebook.github.io/fixed-data-table/



https://facebook.github.io/react/tutorial/tutorial.html





These are done by Facebook itself as an example to other developers. As a
screen reader user, I find this very very insulting and disheartening. I
hope I'm wrong and the examples I found from Facebook are not really what
they expect developers to learn from, but I greatly fear that they are.

Does anyone know why there is such a disconnect between the accessibility
team and the people writing the examples?

Accessibility is not something that can be added, it is something that
happens when good UI practice is followed and all the myriad elements in
UX, UI, screen reader, platform and user align in this very difficult
dance. It is very unwise for a company to put any of those factors out of
line.

Why is FB doing this? How can we communicate that this is a problem?

There are so many apps now that are being made with react that I fear soon
many apps for work and socializing will not be accessible or easily usable.

Thank you,




Brandon Keith Biggs <http://brandonkeithbiggs.com/>;