WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Web Analytics

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Apr 9, 2012 2:50PM

On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 2:22 PM, Karla Kmetz wrote:
>   1. Is there a way to detect usage of screen readers and/or any other
>   assistive technology accessing a website (ie through google analytics)?

No. Well, mostly no. You could use Flash to detect if Windows MSAA is
activated, which is an unreliable way of indicating that a user might
be using some sort of assistive technology, but I would not bother
doing so. You could also do some hacking to detect things like high
contrast or text sizing, but again, the data would likely not be
terribly accurate or useful. Individuals with disabilities have
historically been quite opposed to self-identification of assistive
technology to web site authors.

>   2. Do some AT users turn off Javascript when browsing the web?

Of course they do, but our experience has been that the percentage of
AT users that disable Javascript is not much different than the
general population. Our most recent screen reader user survey found
that 98.4% of respondents had Javascript enabled.

Jared Smith
WebAIM.org