Bad websites cause real-world accessibility woes

A plea to web designers: the real world is hard to navigate when you diverge from the norm, so let's not make things worse in the digital world, too

- Nicole Kobieis

Humans aren’t good at imagining weakness and difficulty: it wasn’t until I started pushing a pram around London that I realised the horrors of public transport for someone on wheels. And this laziness towards accessibility in the physical realm extends into the digital world.

For those with vision problems, many sites and apps don’t properly use alt-text tags on images, or they combine font and background colours that aren’t high contrast. And if you ask route-planning tools for step-free routes, they fob you off on buses or roundabout journeys that have lifts but take twice as long.

Things reach a new peak of annoyance if planning a trip when you have a baby. I don’t mean packing enough nappies and other infantrelated paraphernalia, but finding flights, hotels and the rest.

Here’s a weird niche problem: booking a flight when your child is not yet two years old and you’d like a seat for them can’t be done online. It counts as a special request. Stay with me here, as this is probably more than you want to know about child safety and aviation: babies not yet two years old can fly on a parent’s lap, without requiring the purchase of a seat. Once they’re two, they require a seat of their own (and an approved car seat).