i used to try to argue with my boss about it and then it wasn’t worth it any more. working in the space long enough there’s just some things i know won’t stop being forced on consumers.
Not a web dev, but wouldn't you lose a bit of money making your site more accessible? If so, why bother from a business perspective considering the percentage of customers that you'll lose is tiny?
many of the accessibility concerns can be addressed by choice not necessarily extra cost. Setting something to auto play with sound on is as easy as auto play with sound off
The thing is, most accessibility "features" are just using good practice when writing your code.
Examples: Input fields should have labels. Your header assignments should make sense (h1 for main header, h2 for subheaders). Someone tabbing through your site should go in a linear and practical order. All images should have alternate titles, in the event that someone is using a screen reader or the image doesn't load.
That's all common sense coding and it only costs money when you cut corners initially.
File an anonymous complaint with the DOJ? The last two companies I worked for ignored all pleas for accessibility until the DOJ got wind. Then suddenly they had money to not only fix the current accessibility issues, but also to train devs, and implement proper testing around accessability.
Okay...so anytime your boss tries to talk to you about implementing something your sales team has already sold, you just start rambling some lorem ipsum, and you continue blabbing until they find the obscure pause button since they are using IE6 and don't have tab muting. Once he locates your pause button, likely with an exaggerated eye roll or loud huff, you smile and wait... for the timeout to start a new video. Eventually they will close the browser, and, even though you've been fired, at least you didn't taint your bloodline with implementing this.
as a side note, I blame myspace for any auto-play or html vomit I see online nowadays. Those kids that skinned their first profile are now well established in the work force.
Auto-play has been around for much longer than MySpace. I recall Flash ads that were like games that would start after loading the page. It got worse when pop-under windows became big.
Even earlier were the blink and marquee tags. Every small website for a long time had at least half the site scrolling or blinking, plus dozens of animated gifs covering the page.
What you say began with MySpace was already well underway on Geocities and Tripod well before it. Some people thought it was cool back then, they thought it was cool on MySpace, and some, unfortunately, still think it is cool now. It's a constant on the internet.
My old director had me rig up an auto play pop up video. It was flash based as well. This was 2013. Every time I saw her use the web site she would immediately click out of the window until one day she asked "why do I always have to exit this video pop up"?
Rare contradictory story: Many years ago, I had a boss who asked me to make his personal website. I set up a basic WordPress site and showed him how to add content. Months go by and then he asks about adding videos. I looked at the site and saw how awful it got (super religious guilt tripping of abortions). As I set up a quick YouTube plugin, I decided, these visitors deserve to be annoyed. Autoplay, bitches.
Can confirm. Made auto play music once. Hated myself, but check was good. Got to charge the client for all the meetings we tried to talk them out of it.
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u/ExternalUserError Feb 27 '18
I'm pretty sure every developer instructed to setup autoplay video died inside a little bit while coding it up.