Re: Conforming alternative for mobile should not be Desktop

Hi David,

On your Walmart scenario [1], the site would either:


1.       Be responsive. It probably wouldn’t have a link to the desktop version, but if it did that would have to be a script that changes the break points. (I haven’t seen one of these, in practice you assume the breakpoints do that job.)

2.       Have a separate mobile & desktop site.

In the case of responsive sites, we should be testing the functionality at all the defined breakpoints, so if the menu didn’t work on smaller screens with VoiceOver/talkback/keyboard, that’s a fail (already).

That is what I was getting when suggesting we say that: authors cannot assume a user has access to a different (e.g. desktop) device.

In the case of a separate mobile & desktop site, it could be that their (legacy) desktop site is accessible (including skip links over the menu), in which case I would say it is a valid fall back. It might not be ideal, but if it passes WCAG (including when using small screen devices) then it is a valid website to use. Not optimal, but valid. (I.e. John’s arguments about usability vs accessibility.)

HOWEVER, I think that is unlikely to happen from a business point of view, and increasingly unlikely over time period of WCAG 2.1. Their mobile site is almost certainly newer; did they just forget about accessibility? (Despite having done such a good job on their old site?)

The general strategy I’ve seen organizations take is for a responsive site to replace the previous one, either in one go or mobile first. e.g. the BBC news example [2].
The new responsive site might be the ‘mobile’ site for a while, but it’s designed mobile-first and then expands to replace their previous (desktop) site.

I haven’t seen anyone develop a mobile site, and then replace their desktop site independently. Who wants to maintain two sites?

The experience I’ve had in projects is to slip-stream accessibility into a responsive re-design, which works well.

I know it’s not the opinion you’re looking for, but I hope that helps.

-Alastair

1] David’s scenario was:
So say I'm blind, with a bit of vision, I'm in Walmart, and want to look up a product, pull out my phone go to the site... it serves up the mobile view. The search field, and hamburger menu don't work, so I can't do anything on this page ... so I go looking for a link to the desktop view, hoping that view conforms. 5 minutes gone... get to desktop view on my mobile device, let's assume it conforms to the new shiny WCAG 2.1,  I still have a lousy experience, because they didn't optimize it for mobile. Big images suck up my bandwidth, costing me more money that other users, tons of content to swipe through, thick mega menu, I have no keyboard so I'm using the rotor to sift through the big site with all kinds of extra content. I'm outside, I'm on the go, just trying to look something up.

2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/3d00c051-f017-32d4-8d9b-62ed0c2cd2e8