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Thinking today about the affordances available to disabled individuals vs. people who have no disability or access challenges. IE, a car allows people to get from one place to another, but blind people may never know the affordance of actually driving a car. A computer is an affordance which allows screen reader users to access pages that are not accessible on mobile. The same goes for other disability types. Something may not work on mobile for them, but if they have access to a computer, they still gain the affordance of a more accessible web and user experience. If you lack computer access, you lose out on the affordance of a more accessible web. When we ask people for help with a given task, that is accessing someone else’s affordance instead of creating our own. So, for example, if we ask someone to use a stove instead of learning to use it ourselves, we are using someone’s working eyes as an affordance instead of using tactile or non-visual cooking methods. Non-visual cooking methods help us create our own affordances. Personally, my goal is to maximize the amount of affordances available to me. But I don’t live with any abled people. I guess I’m finding myself wondering how much I just borrowed my sighted then-husband’s affordances instead of creating my own. It can be easy to overuse someone’s lack of disability as an affordance. Is this something I did to anyone in my family? If so, how? And what can I do to show them I’m a different person now.
https://dequeuniversity.com/class/ux/affordances/defining
Note: This is behind a paywall, but signing in with Google should allow you to view this page of the course only if you do not have an account with Deque.

—@SingingNala

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I’m surprised more people aren’t more skeptical about Bluesky’s “choose your own algorithm” feature.

If there’s something I’ve learned over and over again, it’s that the bulk of social media users don’t like choice.

What they want is to open an app and immediately see something interesting. And they want social media companies to implicitly know what their content preferences are without having to make a choice.

If they want to see something specific, they’ll utilize search. And if they don’t want to keep searching for the same thing again and again, they’ll save their search query as a feed.

Some people compare Bluesky’s “choose your own algorithms” to Zapier or IFTTT. But how many people actually use Zapier or IFTTT? I’m not saying there isn’t an audience for that feature, just that it tends to be niche.

People either want a laidback “don’t make me think” social media experience or they want an active intentional one.

“Choose your own algorithms” is neither passive nor active. It’s in the grey zone. It’s presumably for people too lazy to search but too active for the default Home feed.

It’s a feature that tries to be everything to everyone—and for that reason, it looks to be a feature for no one.

—@atomicpoet

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On Friday, we reported an issue with Google Chrome Version 114 and JAWS 2021 and earlier. Thanks to Google’s prompt response and dedication to accessibility, this issue was resolved quickly, leading to a solution that restores access to the Chrome browser for all versions of JAWS. To solve the problem, download the latest version of Chrome, 114.0.5735.110, then restart Chrome to begin using the updated version.

https://support.freedomscientific.com/Support/TechnicalSupport/Bulletin/1795

—@freedomscientific

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Goddamn even if the cops leave the phone locked to view the ID, they’ll just pocket the phone afterwards and “give it back to you when we’re done here” – you willingly handed it over to them, they can keep it.

Now they know you can’t be recording them. You want to hand over the one thing that they know might keep them honest?

Are people just not paying attention? How the fuck can anyone be in favor of this? You want your ID on your phone so bad, get a sticky ID holder and slap it on the back.

—@rodhilton

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Here’s a case where a man got shot for reaching for his phone, the officer involved thought it was a gun.

“Hold on sir, don’t unlock that. There have been reports of people triggering explosives with their phones. Hand it to me and give me your passcode.”

This is easy as fuck. I could come up with 10 bullshit excuses to make you unlock your phone in as many minutes.

Don’t give cops a reason to take your phone. Your recording is likely your only protection.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/22/us/sacramento-police-shooting/index.html

—@rodhilton

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You know what you can’t be doing if you hand your phone to a police officer, whether it remains locked on the ID or not?

You can’t be recording the police officer on that phone.

So let me say it real loud for the people at the back who think that the convenience of not carrying a 10mm piece of plastic is worth putting folks who are disproportionately targeted by police in even greater risk:

DO NOT PUT YOUR FUCKING STATE ID ON YOUR FUCKING PHONE.

—@rodhilton

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The precautions that tech companies put in place (because historically they’re so very careful right?) are irrelevant when the people trying to bypass those precautions have the threat of state-sanctioned violence backing them up implicitly.

“Unlock your phone so I can make sure that isn’t a lock screen wallpaper”

See how easy that was? They can say whatever the fuck they want.

You ever try to “show your ID” by leaving it in your wallet? They make you take it out. Why? Because fuck you.

—@rodhilton

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Yo this is getting boosted enough that I’m getting a lot of replies talking about the technical precautions that are taken to make this safe so let me be clear:

Folks like me were talking about how nervous it makes us that tech companies are keeping so much data on stuff like locations and even menstruation cycles. Folks like you called us paranoid.

Then states made abortion illegal & immediately police started subpoenaing that data to arrest women.

You’re wrong. Consistently and dangerously.

—@rodhilton

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Mitch Wagner (@mitchw@mastodon.social) (Mastodon)
No, a rogue AI drone simulation did not kill its operator, despite recent news reports. Why make up a story about something like that? Because it enforces the narrative that AI is super-powerful and threatens human extinction, which is bullshit. But it’s profitable bullshit for AI grifters, who are literally the same people who were peddling crytop/blockchain grift untill last year — @pluralistic@mamot.fr https://doctorow.medium.com/ayyyyyy-eyeeeee-4ac92fa2eed
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Max Leibman (@maxleibman@mastodon.social) (Mastodon)
When people complain that ubiquitous smartphone and earphone use in public places is isolating us from each other, what I hear is, “HEY! YOU, STRANGER WHO DOESN’T KNOW ME! I’M MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING GOING ON IN YOUR LIFE! PAY ATTENTION TO ME!” My time and attention doesn’t become part of the commons just because I happen to be passing through the commons. (Bringing this up apropos of nothing, including of any major product announcements that may or may not have been made this week.)