Atlas Ableism – HTML Accessibility

black and white interpretation of Atlas holding a universal access symbol partially covered by a red circle with a line throught it, indicating that there is a lack of accessibility in Atlas.

There is a new browser in town: ChatGPT Atlas browser

Given OpenAI’s general flakiness when it comes to UI design, accessibility and usability, I installed the browser with little enthusiasm as I felt it was going to be crap accessibility wise. But we can always hope…

It is a closed source browser (I believe), using a fork of Google’s open source blink rendering engine So the accessibility of web pages viewed in the browser should be pretty good, as long as the page it is rendering is built with accessibility in mind. It is unknown whether the engine will be updated from the blink source or not, if bugs in general and accessibility bugs will or will not be fixed, There does not appear to be a public bug tracker, which other browsers have, but lets keep hoping…

Welcome to ChatGPT Atlas

intro screen of the Atlas browser "wecome to ChatGPT Atlas"

The Welcome screen is very simple but manages to squeeze in multiple accessibility issues:

Images without useful alternative text
low contrast text
a button without a text label (or accessible name)

This does not augur well, but hey let’s stay optimistic… At least the login with with ChatGPT button is labelled.

I am not going to do an exhaustive review of ChatGPT Atlas browser as I am exhausted by the litany of issues I have found while only scratching the surface of this browser. Also OpenAI need to clean up their own mess, won’t hold my breath, neither should any of you.

noted

Despite my lack of in depth testing, I will state with confidence that from what I have experienced with ChatGPT Atlas browser It does not conform to:

It’s an inaccessible piece of software built on the sweat of other’s work much like OpenAI’s other business offerings.

So Trendy

lyrics

Flying cars
It's the jet-pack man
Will I ever get the brace down there
Under the swivel sticks and stupid hair
Under the access code and the Face ID
There was a minute where I had it, yeah
Just as the lorry turned and left the air
Under the access code and the Face ID
I'm sick of looking at the windmill gear
A bag of flour and a neck-scarf 'ere
Under the access codes of the new ID
So trendy
So trendy
So trendy
You get seen and you wanna stick to it
So trendy
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So trendy
You get seen and you wanna stick to it
Hey, it's Back and Bicep Day
Check out all my squiggly veins
Got a fifty-seven screenshots in one hour just in case
I appeal to random peeps
Through a filter they know me
Think I'll wear a mushroom haircut and a cross earring
Wait, it's the jet-pack man
The mysterious jet-pack man
Flying over LAX
I wonder where he's off to next
So trendy (oh so trendy)
So trendy (oh so trendy)
So trendy
You get seen and you wanna stick to it
So trendy (oh so trendy)
So trendy (oh so trendy)
So trendy
You get seen and you wanna stick to it
And I don't need no jet
And fashion suicide
You got your Top Gun glasses upside-down, you goose, you snide
You know they don't chase you, they always chase we
'Cause everybody wants a piece, we're so trendy
You know they don't chase you, they always chase we
'Cause everybody wants a piece, we're so trendy
You know they don't chase you, they always chase we (oh so trendy)
'Cause everybody wants a piece, we're so trendy (oh so trendy)
You know they don't chase you, they always chase we (oh so trendy)
'Cause everybody wants a piece, we're so trendy (oh so trendy)

6 replies on “Atlas Ableism”

[…] Atlas Ableism, by Steve Faulkner, where he shows the Atlass browser itself is (ironically) an access barrier […]

I’m obviously missing something because I can’t see the point of the Atlas browser. I watched the whole of the demo video and didn’t see anything I would ever want to do.

BTW, augur. An auger is for boring holes. Insert your own joke here.