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Websites or user agents - where to put the assistive tools?

for

From: Peter Krantz
Date: Jul 28, 2011 1:33AM


On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 08:36, John Foliot < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> which ultimately confirms to
> me that no 2 users are the same <smile>, and that offering at least 2
> choices would be a wonderful best practices, especially for very high
> volume sites.
>

The practice of having websites providing the assistive tools has
several drawbacks. The tools will be presented differently from site
to site (while the user has the same need) and there will always be a
lot of sites without them.

Wouldn't it be better if the default design of a website makes the
content transformable into various representations and assistive
functionality were built into browsers and operating systems instead?

A lot of the time accessibility professionals ask website builders to
do things. I would also like to see recommendations on what they
shouldn't do. An example could be to not duplicate functionality that
is available in browsers/OSs today (e.g. text resize, contrast
switch).

Regards,

Peter Krantz