Hello, world! Welcome back to my little corner of the internet, where we navigate the world one screen reader announcement at a time.
Today, I want to talk about a special, unadvertised feature of living with a disability. It’s not in the brochure. It’s a bit like a video game developer releasing a secret, ultra-hard difficulty setting that comes with no extra points, just extra frustration. It’s the mandatory, non-optional "Expert Mode." You don’t choose it; it chooses you.
What is Expert Mode, you ask? It’s the unspoken mandate that we, the disabled, must become masters of workarounds, collectors of arcane accessories, and grateful recipients of "accessibility" that feels more like a consolation prize. It’s the constant, exhausting, and sometimes comical task of bridging the chasm between the world as it was designed and our ability to live in it. It's a life filled with unpatched bugs, and the required "Downloadable Content" is a bag of cables and a reservoir of patience.
Let's explore some of the "features" of this exclusive mode.
The BYOA (Bring Your Own Accessibility) Model: It's July 29, 2025, and I'm standing at an ATM. The world around me operates on seamless taps of phones and watches. But for me to get my own money out, I have to engage in a ritual from a bygone era. I reach into my bag, past my Bluetooth earbuds and USB-C everything, and pull out a pair of tangled, wired headphones with a 3.5mm jack. I have to untangle them, find the recessed, often grimy jack on the machine, and plug myself in. This is the BYOA model in its prime. The burden isn't on the multi-billion dollar bank to integrate a speaker or modern Bluetooth pairing; it's on me to curate, carry, and maintain a personal museum of obsolete technology just to achieve a basic level of privacy and function.
The Aesthetic Trap: My old desk fan, a gloriously noisy beast with a satisfyingly chunky dial, finally died. I decided to upgrade. I bought a sleek, modern, whisper-quiet tower fan that the reviews praised for its minimalist design. It was a beautiful, silent monolith of black plastic. And that was the problem. It had no buttons. No dials. No switches. Its controls were a single, smooth, featureless touch surface on top. To a sighted person, it's the pinnacle of elegance. To me, it's an unusable brick. I spent an absurd amount of time just randomly tapping and swiping on this inscrutable plane, a silent pantomime of frustration. Is this power? Is this speed? My finger would slide over the invisible icon for "oscillate," but with no click, no notch, and no voice to tell me, the fan remained stubbornly still. The irony is that my old, "dumb" fan with its click-click-click dial was infinitely smarter from a universal design perspective. Should I return the sculpture and buy another fan with a proper, tactile knob, or work out how to pair this one with its associated app? What happens if the app isn’t accessible, or the app updates and I am left without access to my fan? This is a clear reminder that in the war between minimalist aesthetics and genuine access, access rarely wins.
The QR Code Gauntlet: Picture this: you're out with friends, the conversation is flowing, and you're ready for a fun meal. The server arrives, not with menus, but with a cheerful, "Just scan the QR code on the table!" For my friends, this is a momentary detour. For me, it's a multi-stage accessibility challenge that yanks me out of the social bubble.
Pull out my phone.
Open the camera and begin the awkward dance of hovering it over the table, asking, "Am I close? A little to the left?" trying to capture a small square I can't see. The chatter at the table fades as my focus narrows to this one frustrating task. The restaurant is noisy, and I’m struggling to hear my phone.
If I succeed, I'm now on a website that, best-case scenario, is poorly formatted for a screen reader. Worst-case, it's a low-resolution JPG of the menu, completely unreadable to my device in any efficient manner, even with newly created AI tools which might read the content, but may not interject formatting and accessible mark-up to make traversal of that content easier.
By the time I’ve navigated this digital obstacle course, my friends have already decided on drinks and appetizers, and I feel like I've just run a race merely to get to the starting line. The simple, communal act of choosing a meal is replaced by an isolating technology puzzle.
Feature Parity? More Like Feature Poverty: This is the slow, creeping segregation of the digital world. A theoretical but plausible scenario where a company launches a powerful project management tool with a dynamic, visual Kanban board where you can drag and drop tasks. It's revolutionary for sighted teams. The accessible version I get? A static, un-editable text list of tasks. No dependencies, no progress tracking, no collaboration. It technically gives me "access" to the information, but it denies me the tools to be an effective, competitive professional. This isn't just about convenience; this gap can directly impact our careers, our productivity, and our ability to participate on a level playing field.
Why This Isn't Equity
These "solutions" are fundamentally inequitable. They build a world of digital and physical segregation disguised as progress. And we users are expected to be thankful and grateful.
It Transfers the Burden and Cognitive Load: True accessibility is invisible and integrated. "Expert Mode" does the opposite. It places the cognitive, financial, and physical load squarely on the user with the disability. It's not just about carrying a cable; it's the constant mental energy spent remembering the cable, the stress of a dead battery, the "plan B" you always have to have in your back pocket. This cognitive overhead is a hidden, persistent tax on our daily lives.
It Creates a Fragile Existence: Our independence becomes a house of cards. For me to use a smart appliance, the home Wi-Fi must work, the company's cloud server must be online, my phone must be charged, the app must not have a new accessibility bug, and my phone's OS must not have changed in a way that breaks it. A single point of failure in this long chain means I can't turn on my own fan.
It Erodes Dignity: Having to perform "the QR code dance" or explain why you can't use the theoretical, sleek new vending machine at work to grab a Coke, it all chips away at autonomy and privacy. It forces us into a position of either needing to ask for help, appearing incompetent, or struggling in a "performance of independence" that is just as taxing. It constantly reinforces a sense of being an afterthought.
It Creates "Accessibility Debt": In software, "technical debt" is the implied cost of rework caused by choosing an easy solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer. These bolt-on accessibility fixes create "accessibility debt." With every new feature added to the main product, the separate, "accessible" version falls further behind, making the goal of true parity an ever-receding horizon.
Remedying the 'Expert Mode' Mandate
So, how do we disable this forced difficulty setting? The responsibility lies with the creators, designers, and decision-makers to embrace deep, meaningful universal design.
For Physical Devices: Stop prioritizing aesthetics over function. A flat touch surface is inaccessible without context. The solution is not a simple buzz or vibration. We need either 1) Reliable physical controls with clear tactile markers (raised dots, notched dials, distinct button shapes) that allow for operation by feel and muscle memory, or 2) A full screen reader interface, just like on our phones. The gold standard for a "smart" device would be a small screen with a built-in speaker that runs a simple version of VoiceOver or TalkBack, navigated with physical arrow and selection buttons. This provides the full context needed for confident operation.
For Kiosks and ATMs: Integrate speakers for public audio output with volume controls. For privacy, use modern standards like USB-C or Bluetooth pairing, not obsolete jacks.
For Restaurants and Retail: Always provide a physical alternative. A QR code can be a supplement, but it should never be a replacement. A simple, large-print or Braille physical menu, a raised QR code that points to an accessible website, an accessible kiosk, or a staff member trained and willing to read the options is a mark of true hospitality.
The Golden Rule: Hire Disabled People. This cannot be overstated. This is not about tokenism; it is a strategic imperative. The lived experience of disability is an unparalleled form of expertise. When you include disabled people in the entire design process, you don't just get a "compliant" product. You get an innovative, robust, and often delightful product, because you have solved for the edge cases, which strengthens the core experience for everyone.
We are not "expert users" who enjoy a challenge. We are customers, employees, and human beings who deserve the same seamless, dignified experience as everyone else.
So I issue a challenge to all the creators, developers, and innovators out there: Are you genuinely designing one world for everyone, or are you just shipping a product with a hidden "Expert Mode" you hope most people never have to find?
Let’s advocate for a world where accessibility isn't an afterthought or a burden, but a foundational principle of good design. Let's demand equity, not just the illusion of access.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of my employer or any other organization. Some statements made are theoretical, and do not reflect any real-life situation at any company, however they are realistic enough that they easily could. Finally, a quick note on my process: While all the ideas, experiences, and opinions in this post are entirely my own, I used Gemini to help refine the language and improve readability. Think of it as applying universal design to my own writing process!
Thank you. I very much enjoyed this piece. Well, maybe 'enjoyed' isn't quite the right word. Let's say I can relate!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was taking web design and development classes - must have been thirty years ago! - most of the instructors were strict about adhering to the W3C standards for HTML, CSS and accessibility. They drilled into us that universal design is good design for all users, whether surfing your site with a screen reader or on a mobile device, or using some future technology we couldn't imagine at that time. But I took one class with an instructor who cared exclusively about how the web site looked. She actively encouraged students to use deprecated HTML, non web safe colors, anything and everything to make our projects look exactly how she thought they should look. I was constantly at odds with her for insisting on doing things to spec. In the end, she made sure I understood that she only passed me out of the goodness of her heart, but that I clearly did not understand web design.
Like I said, that was thirty years ago. Sadly, the advocates of so called aesthetics over good and sensible design seem to have won the war. So we're left, as you say, in a constant and exhausting expert mode. Separate but equal, anyone?
Well said. The older people losing vision later in life who don't have benefit of a smart speaker or a smart phone or even the most rudimentary tactile skills are left behind even more than those of us who grew up figuring out our own accommodations along the way. Their multiple disabilities often preclude their ability to use products with complicated set up and activation schemes. Leaving their needs out of design efforts means more dependence and higher cost for all of us to provide them care and a meaningful life. I can't tell you the hours my husband spent on the phone helping his aging mother to reset the time on her VCR every time the electricity flashed. The invention of self setting time on the VCR probably saved us thousands of hours on the phone. It's a little thing but it's not a little thing when it's a blue number flashing in your face.
ReplyDeleteI quite agree with you, Nimer. I hate with a great hatred the QR code. it's everywhere! How does one scan a QR code on a TV screen? Being totally blind, my ability to point my phone precisely at something is minimal at best. I've had a restaurant pull out a braille menu, but it may be years out of date and I have to end up asking for help anyway. Also-as I haven't tried smart glasses-if you hold something in front of it to read, will it say," it's upside down," so you'd know? I rather like real knobs and buttons.
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