Dear Google:

[sethrenn]

I understand you want as many people as possible to use your Chrome browser. But re-designing all of your services so that they will suck and be less accessible or downright inaccessible in every other browser? Ur doing it rong. You used to be a cool company compared to the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft. Please, please stop pulling this shit on

Comments

[sethrenn]

TBH, I'm not actually sure if or how they look better in Chrome-- we've so far resisted all their attempts to make us download it. I just know that every time I use Google Documents or Google Books in any other browser, it pops up a message telling me that "your browser does not support all the features of [service]. If you are having problems, try switching to Google Chrome."

About the accessibility... we have a close friend& who use a screenreader, and we know from them that a lot of these "improved" Google services are not very accessible to screenreaders, or no longer accessible at all. So that right away is a Big No. Regarding our own accessibility needs, drastically changing the layouts of things without giving us the chance to opt out, or switch back to the old design, will make it initially difficult to impossible for us to use the new layout for a while-- our brain just freezes up, to the point where we don't even have reading comprehension for words that are sitting right there in front of us. One of the things LJ has kept that I'm genuinely grateful for them keeping is the ability to keep using the old interfaces, as long as you have a paid account.

[luinied]

I'm going to guess that those messages are unrelated to accessibility. I know Google has proposed a few new pieces of HTML5 functionality by adding them to Chrome - like the ability to display those "toaster" popups - that so far no other browser supports (and that might not become standards in the end).

It is disappointing to hear that Google is dropping the ball on accessibility, though. You'd think, with their resources, that they'd be able to get that right. But, alas, I think that having the ability to opt out of a style change is mostly a thing of the past. (On that subject, have you heard about the eventually-upcoming removal of comment subjects on LiveJournal?)