Web accessibility was a rather dry topic for me, a budding web developer. Despite being visually impaired myself, I can still see a computer screen without major issues. Perhaps because of this, considering web accessibility—things like adding alt text, adjusting font sizes, and thinking about layouts—felt like a "side task" that wasn't very productive. It was something that seemed to restrict my creativity and didn't necessarily lead to more visitors.

Today, I happened to watch a YouTube video. It was a regular Japanese anime review, a type of video with fast pacing and crucial subtitles that I rarely watch. It takes me longer than people with healthy vision to find the beginning of a subtitle line with my limited field of view. Just as I would rush to read the subtitle and look back up at the screen to piece together the context, the video would quickly cut to the next scene. The subtitles weren't very easy on the eyes either—the color, size, and position were all off. The intermittent narration was invaluable for me to grasp the content. I looked at the comments, and people were just busy talking about the anime itself.

That's right, it was this very loneliness. I wasn't ready to process and enjoy the stimulation of the world around me, but the world was already moving on. This feeling of being left behind and unable to keep pace with others, this sense of alienation, was something I often experienced in real life. When I was studying abroad in France, I would stay inside as much as possible whenever there was a festival in my neighborhood.

Yet, just because the computer screen was a more comfortable space for me, I had no intention of being considerate to others who might feel alienated in this same space. If my perception of web accessibility is like this, even as a visually impaired person, imagine how a non-disabled person would feel? This is probably why guidelines are in place. It’s the role of a system or institution—to create laws at the national level that essentially say, "No matter how unaware you are of social minorities, if you just follow these minimum requirements, the world will become a more beautiful place."