It is not uncommon that I raise an accessibility or usability issue with a client’s design or implementation and am met with either “But Google does this,” or “But Apple does this.” Mostly it is the default response to any issue I raise, but it is far worse when it is a reaction to a genuine technical failure or problem real users have identified.

That response does not address the problem I may have raised. It avoids. It offloads responsibility. It declines to even try.

Be Best

A very very quick selection of decisions that Google and Apple made that were counter to what experienced usability and UX experts recommended:

• Google Material Design told us form fields were better without boxes, until they tested it.
• Apple told us removing button outlines in iOS was better, until users complained.
• Google relies on color alone for links in search results, which is a WCAG violation.
• Apple went with super-thin typefaces in iOS, until finally making them thicker in subsequent releases.
• Google Chrome uses a default blue focus indicator, which is invisible on their own blue-background navigation.
• Apple thought animating apps on launch was cool, until users with vestibular orders got sick.
• Google deploys an update to its browser that can break the web for screen reader users, and lets it sit for for two releases.
• Apple for years has hidden the semantics of lists when they are styled, forcing developers to use hacks to reinsert them.
• Google shares lessons learned from its commendable Disability Support team in the form of an inaccessible PDF document that insists it cannot make accessible.
• Apple continues to fail to build VoiceOver support for an HTML element that has existed since the dawn of HTML and 2½ times longer than VoiceOver on iPhone.
• YouTube announces it is removing the ability for community members to contribute subtitles or captions to videos.
• Apple still does not send a focus event when a native button is clicked, an issue first reported in 2009, again in 2012, again in 2013, and yet again in 2013.
• Both Apple and Google are content to let crowd-funding efforts drive the addition of accessibility features (:focus-visible and inert) or CSS feature support (:not()) to their browsers.
• Apple makes a landing page touting its accessibility accomplishments, but the page itself has accessibility issues (not all are false positives, despite response).
• Google has a VPAT for Gmail that does not accurately describe its conformance, easily provable, and frustrating yet another claim of “but Google uses these colors”.
• Definitely do not follow YouTube as a good (or passable) example of how to build and use tabs.
• Google tweets a silent text-heavy video to promote its event for International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which is retweeted by the Google Accessibility account. I call them out, show how to do it accessibly, and Google deletes the tweet without acknowledgment while the