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Re: Web development; How to identify if a screen reader is in use

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From: Jared Smith
Date: May 11, 2017 12:13PM

Jennifer (and others) make very good points. We at WebAIM are the
first to admin that our surveys are based on a convenience sample that
is impacted by various uncontrollable factors (and we're trying to
secure funding to conduct a nationwide survey of a representative
sample of users with disabilities). It's perhaps a stretch to say that
the survey is representative of screen reader users generally, but we
can certainly state that it is representative of the 1465 respondents
who answered this question in 2014.

The question itself was "How comfortable would you be with allowing
web sites to detect whether you are using a screen reader if doing so
resulted in a more accessible experience?" 86.5% of respondents were
very or somewhat comfortable with allowing this.

It is correct that this question did not contain any number of
possible scenarios of how that data might be used (many of which would
create less accessible experiences, and thus be contrary to the
question). But the question itself was pretty straightforward and the
results rather definitive.

With that said, I'm also generally opposed to supporting assistive
technology detection in most circumstances because it likely would
result in worse accessibility on the web (as has been the case with
ARIA) and ghettoization of users with disabilities.

Jared Smith
WebAIM.org