kalensh

I really don't think we can lay the responsibility for this at the feet of "the left."

I don't doubt there are those who have had uncomfortable, rude encounters with anti-religious people, but I do doubt how frequently this occurs. I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family and we openly prayed before meals at restaurants and never had a single issue. I attended a public school and had plenty of friends who were remarkably tolerant of when I got a bit weird about religion (including calling a friend's family "heathens" for not following the right type of Christianity). Yes, there was one classmate in high school who was outspoken, a bit angry and sometimes rude about her "leftist" beliefs but she was one classmate among many! And yet every week in Church I heard about how the world was against us, we were so persecuted and hated, silly comments like "oh you'd get in trouble if you brought a bible in your backpack to your public school" which wasn't true at all.

In my experience it's an identity built on being "different", on believing that others want to tear you down because of your beliefs. And a narrative that pushes this identity, by amplifying anything that could come across as disrespectful or dismissive, setting it up for someone to come in and say "you should be proud of yourself." And when this includes stupid things like Starbucks changing their cups to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, I really don't think "be nicer" is going to help.

It's worth nothing that this change happened before the questionnaire was instituted. (The paper referenced in the article was from 2006, I haven't dug enough to find a date for when this change was made, but the narrative in the article also establishes this act as happening in the '00s.) Additionally, from the Conclusions:

"Reweighting was based on data collected from incumbent ATCSs who took AT-SAT on a research basis; some of these employees achieved overall scores less than 70 (that was one of the reasons for the reweighting effort – a belief that incumbent employees should be able to pass the entry-level selection test)."

I don't think this proves that the update to the test was good or bad in overall competency, but I do think it's worth investigating if the test should be updated when existing employees are unable to pass.

It's valuable to note that this paper is from 2006, and states:

"Reweighting was based on data collected from incum- bent ATCSs who took AT-SAT on a research basis; some of these employees achieved overall scores less than 70 (that was one of the reasons for the reweighting effort – a belief that incumbent employees should be able to pass the entry-level selection test)"

They still had to pass the performance test. It was just no longer the first step in the process. I want to be clear, that doesn't mean the questionnaire was a good thing. It just means that the questionnaire did not lower the bar.

Instead it reduced the applicant pool in a sudden and unfair manner, which is it's own issue.

Another thing to check for with sticky headers is how it behaves when the page is zoomed. Often, the header increased in size proportionately, which can shrink down the effective reading area quite a bit. Add in the frequent sticky chat button at the bottom, and users may be left with not a lot of screen to read text in.

There can be a logic to keeping the header at the top like a menu bar, and I applaud you if you take an approach that focuses on value to the user. Though I'd still say most sites that use this approach, don't have a strong need for it, nor do they consider smaller viewports except for portrait mobile.

Configuration is great, though it quickly runs into discoverability issues. However it is the only way to solve some things - like you pointed out with colors. I know people who rely on high contrast colors and others that reduce contrast as much as they effectively can.

It reminds me of working on campus IT, and the sort of person who, at the end of the semester realize there are pages remaining in their "free print" allotment, print out every page completely covered in black ink to waste as much as possible.

Which is exactly what the article is about ;) (Well, one example of an early society that didn't distinguish between green a blue.)

My issue is that blood pressure is being used by many corporations/health insurance plans to determine your premiums. So adding yet another layer of nervousness - you will be paying extra money over the course of the next year if your blood pressure is a little high (threshold is 120/80).

The lawsuit worthy aspect is that labels for buttons are super important for understanding what a button does. A lack of labels (either through not putting text inside the <button> element or using a technique like aria-label) can quickly make an interface unusable for a blind person - the visual equivalent would be completely blank, identical buttons. That barrier is what someone could sue over.

On Twitter I'd say the "main character" designation is less about how a person acts, and more about how everyone else is talking about them. They are the main character of the moment because suddenly half of your timeline is other Twitter users either directly or indirectly referring to them. Usually because they are wrong in a way that drives a ton of engagement.

This is a minor point of annoyance between me and my husband, I think because of our height difference. He likes to open ALL the cabinets when putting away dishes, and sometimes leaves them open. I, with eye level much closer to the bottom edge of the doors, walk in and see all these corners waiting for me to run into them. When I put away dishes, I open a cabinet, put away everything that belongs there, close it and move along to the next one.

But I also think it's a difference in how we were raised, because he does not push his chair in after leaving a table either..........

Along with the "What about accessibility?" FAQ answer being misleading about the current state, I have two additional concerns:

- Special text only for screen readers: This should not be a primary method of making a site accessible. Hidden text is often incorrect, or maybe it was correct and then someone updated the page and it no longer matches. Out-of-site, out-of-mind is unfortunately often true in this case, and should really be more of a last resort.

- Accessibility is about so much more than screen readers. My first concern for a platforms like this is people who struggle with animations - either feelings of vertigo or nausea, or just finding movement very distracting. Are prefers-reduced-motion settings respected? Does this encourage authors to create content in a way that has a minimal motion fallback that still works? Is it easy for users to stop animations?

Unfortunately, the accessibility challenges here are significant. I'm sure work will be done later to try and improve it, but you will be limited by previous decisions to patching in solutions as best you can. And that rarely results in a truly usable, accessible experience.

Because very few companies will maintain that alternate site to ensure it provides the same functionality and content. And accessibility is more than just screen reader compatibility.

It really depends. If table cell order happens to conform with a logical reading order, yeah, screen readers generally figured out when to ignore table semantics. But if the reading order does not make sense going row by row, then they are terribly broken.

Nested divs aren't that bad. (Ignoring overall performance considerations. And even then I'd suspect that's less a concern than download and running all these JS libraries.) Nested divs with a mish-mash of poorly applied ARIA can get pretty bad though!

Table layouts are also terrible for anyone who is not viewing the site at the browser width you designed it for. Accessibility is more than screen readers, and the ability to zoom or adjust browser width or display on a different device (hello mobile) is incredibly valuable for a lot of people. And I'd argue that the "ease" of using table layouts disappears as soon as you try to accommodate for any of that.

I disagree, at least partially. Feeling isolated, alone, or unappreciated are not, in any way, issues that only happen to women. However, the fact that she was often the only woman at the very least exacerbated these issues. If she had had female colleagues to share experiences with and provide encouragement, she might have come out of it with a different perspective. Female colleagues who already get along with with the rest of the team might have also provided an easier route to socializing with everyone.

I don't think she's trying to highlight that the men she worked with were sexist. She brings up one incident but then acknowledges that was only her interpretation of it at the time. Instead, the more general sexism issue has to do with the lack of women in the tech field. She might have still faced some form of these issues in a team that was more evenly divided, but having that support could help distinguish what's caused by sexism and what's due to other reasons, including her own inexperience or insecurity.