[HN Gopher] How Chrome Accessibility Works
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       How Chrome Accessibility Works
        
       Author : lelandfe
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2024-08-27 19:41 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (chromium.googlesource.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (chromium.googlesource.com)
        
       | mltony wrote:
       | Could you guys fix this accessibility bug:
       | https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=126072... -
       | it's been open for years.
        
       | vhiremath4 wrote:
       | It seems like small multimodal LLMs have a killer use case to be
       | bundled with browsers for accessibility. Eventually:
       | 
       | * if an image doesn't have alt text
       | 
       | * you need to be read the page
       | 
       | * you need to be described what's happening in a video
       | 
       | A model built into the OS or browser seems like a no-brainer.
        
         | qingcharles wrote:
         | Right now I use LLMs to generate alt text for images, and they
         | are better than any I would have written by hand. Only in about
         | 1% of cases do I need to correct anything.
        
         | yellow_postit wrote:
         | Edge started doing this a few years ago:
         | https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2022/03/17/appears-to-sa...
        
         | lelandfe wrote:
         | I know FB has been doing computer vision-driven automatic alt
         | text since 2016, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they've been
         | experimenting with LLMs to improve it...
         | 
         | https://www.afb.org/aw/17/6/15327
        
       | partiallypro wrote:
       | Slightly unrelated, but there's a whole industry on ADA
       | compliance and randomly trying to sue people over it in the
       | digital space (for website specifically.) Which seems like an
       | issue that could -largely- be solved by the browsers themselves
       | (animation pauses, contrast, font sizes, readable font switching,
       | etc.) There's no telling how much companies spend on services
       | like Accessible or Userway, etc. There's also a new industry on
       | cookie & privacy compliance because of this too. I get privacy
       | and ADA compliance, but some of this is just clearly written by
       | the people making the tools. It's regulatory capture to the
       | fullest extent. I found this out recently with a client wanting
       | to pay through the nose to essentially have a whole separate
       | company paid monthly to make sure the privacy policy and cookie
       | policies meet various state laws. It's a bit ridiculous.
        
         | joemi wrote:
         | I'm not so sure that "solving" accessibility at the browser
         | level would eliminate those kinds of lawsuits. It might be able
         | to be argued that their "client" uses a different browser that
         | doesn't include those accessibility features, and the website
         | in question (that relies on the browsers fixing accessibility)
         | isn't ADA compliant in that case.
        
           | zamadatix wrote:
           | I don't know how realistic the approach in general is but
           | "This site only works in ${SpecificBrowser}" or "Your browser
           | does not support ${'Standard'}" banner refusals have yet to
           | result in a business getting sued for not displaying properly
           | in an arbitrary browser that isn't supported.
        
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       (page generated 2024-08-27 23:00 UTC)