Comment by csmpltn
5 years ago
Exactly.
We should decouple the core of the application from the UI. Have a standardized interface which exposes all available functionality to the screen reader and allows it to talk to the core directly, bypassing the UI.
Stop doing what everybody does today: stop having screen reader depend on the UI (ie. aria-labels, etc). This problem can't be solved by adding "decorations" to existing UI components. It's best solved by exposing an entirely separate interface which lets screen readers (and other hardware) interact with the core of the application directly.
This sounds like a spec, a set of language frameworks and a design pattern waiting to be written.
If it's done right and standardized it'd be worth it for everybody since even people who don't need accessibility features could then create their own interfaces to the programs they use customized for their preferences and workflow