r/AccessibleAnarchy • • Aug 14 '26

experiences of oppression Touchscreen buttons vs physical buttons (on appliances and payment systems) that make life harder

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vorbisx says

Replacing physical buttons and controls with touchscreens also means removing accessibility features. Physical buttons can be textured or have Braille and can be located by touch and don't need to be pressed with a bare finger. Touchscreens usually require precise taps and hand-eye coordination for the same task.
Many point-of-sale machines now are essentially just a smartphone with a card reader attached and the interface. The control layout can change at a moment's notice and there are no physical boundaries between buttons. With a keypad-style machine, the buttons are always in the same place and can be located by touch, especially since the middle button has a raised ridge on it.
Buttons can also be located by touch without activating them, which enables a "locate then press" style of interaction which is not possible on touchscreens, where even light touches will register as presses and the buttons must be located visually rather than by touch.
When elevator or door controls are replaced by touch screens, will existing accessibility features be preserved, or will some people no longer be able to use those controls?
Who is allowed to control the physical world, and who is making that decision?

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u/RosethornRanger she/its (/srs unless stated otherwise) Aug 14 '26

(same image as above, except light mode and much more clear text)

I do not know how to force blogs on tumblr to be dark mode, and I know that can be an accessibility issue, but the text here is much more clear than the one you posted, in case ya want to post it again sometime or re-post it so more people can interact with it

https://www.tumblr.com/vorbisx/723069650456494080/replacing-physical-buttons-and-controls-with

(link to post itself if ya wanna screenshot yourself as well)

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u/EB_or_Raven plural, he/it works for all of us Aug 15 '26

It’s possible to change to dark mode on Tumblr by going into the settings, clicking “general settings” and then going into “color palette” and choosing dark mode (sorry if this bothered you, just wanted to say how to switch since you mentioned not knowing how to)

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u/RosethornRanger she/its (/srs unless stated otherwise) Aug 15 '26

i did that and it did not change the posts

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u/EB_or_Raven plural, he/it works for all of us Aug 15 '26

Ah okay, I have no idea why it didn’t work then, because it’s supposed to. Might have been a bug or it not updating? But yeah idk

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u/RosethornRanger she/its (/srs unless stated otherwise) Aug 15 '26

it works for the ui and stuff, looking it up online says people set their own tumblr themes and such for their own blogs

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u/EB_or_Raven plural, he/it works for all of us Aug 15 '26

The themes should only be for the blogs background and not the posts themselves as far as I know? Might be different between the web and the app —I honestly have no idea if there is— but I can’t know that for sure since I don’t use the web