Accessibility in home assistant

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As a user of home assistant for a year or so, but as a web developer for nearly 15 years, I find the accessibility of home assistant to be lacking. I am fortunate enough to not require use of a screen reader, brail tech or other “non standard” tech, but as an open for all system, this should be baked in to enable everyone to have the same/equivalent experience of using home assistant.

A lot of the focus recently has been on voice and AI, for obvious reasons. But creating a truly open for all experience will really put HA above and beyond those of the big tech companies.

My own experience is web focused but I know from being a “power user” that tabbing between dashboard components is pretty much non existent, even only using core cards. This alone makes me despair at the experience that other users and potential users go through. (Bear in mind that a11y is not always a permanent issue and likely everyone will have issues at some point - screen glare, broken arm, holding a baby, short term mobility issues, as well as mental and physical disability).

This is almost certainly going to put off anyone who doesn’t use standard interactive devices such as a mouse. If I struggle with a keyboard only set up, I can only imagine how difficult HA is to use with a screen reader, touch only, keyboard only, brail device, pointer device, eye tracking etc.

I appreciate it’s harder to get third party integrations to follow guidelines or requirements, but the core UI should be useable for all, regardless of a11y requirements. Rules in place for this would encourage the fantastic community to follow, making the HA ecosystem an inclusive place for all to use.

I foresee HA being the forerunner in a11y for smart home solutions, enabling everyone to succeed in navigating the (quite frankly overwhelming) array of opportunities with the vigour we all aspire to.

Final point, smart tech actually helps to improve accessibility issues, think: buttons to call for help, light switches at wheelchair height, cameras to show who is at the door, automations to keep a house or room warm. With all of these improvements to those beneficiaries, why not make the entire ecosystem as a11y friendly as possible?

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The frontend team take accessibility for all very seriously. See: home-assistant/frontend Accessibility · Discussions · GitHub

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For clarity… a11y in the above post refers to the A11Y Project:

The guidelines mentioned are (I think) the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

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As a screen reader user, I chose Home Assistant not despite its accessibility issues, but because the majority of its interface is actually excellently accessible. Yes, there are occasional challenges (like with the new dashboards with sections, which I discussed here: Roadmap 2024 Year-end Update: Full steam ahead! - #31 by edigorn ), but I can definitely confirm that I see and greatly appreciate the HA team’s consistent commitment to making the system accessible for people with various needs and limitations (in my case, visual impairment).

True, accessibility and standards compliance might not be a 100% priority in the initial phases of new features, but I have personally experienced that reporting issues leads to tangible improvements. For example, I had significant problems with card layouts in the older version of dashboards. I suggested a solution allowing cards to be positioned using edit fields where we could specify the position number, and this was implemented. Similarly, I had issues with setting my home location on the map – there were no accessible edit fields for this (while all other locations had fields for latitude, longitude, and elevation). This too was fixed. These are just a couple of examples that showcase the team’s responsiveness to accessibility concerns.

There are still some things to improve. In my assessment, the highest priority should be given to editing the new dashboards with sections – accessibility really took a vacation there. In the future, it would be great to see accessible graphs, for example, the energy panel that I could fully read with a screen reader.

However, I can confidently confirm that I see the HA team’s ongoing efforts and dedication to accessibility, which is why I use this particular system and support its development by subscribing to Home Assistant Cloud from Nabu.

In summary, dear HA team, please always remember about accessibility. The example of dashboards with sections shows what happens when accessibility principles are overlooked. However, as my years of using Home Assistant have taught me, improving accessibility is just a matter of time. And of course, we need to report these issues – I understand that our needs aren’t obvious to everyone.

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