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Re: "Overlay" accessibility products.

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From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Mar 26, 2019 9:12AM

Hi Larry, products that require a user to enable accessibility after the fact generally have a difficult time addressing the spectrum of needs that users with disabilities have. Many users benefit from programmatic changes that benefit text-to-speech while also benefiting from visual changes and design changes. So it's best to design a site to be inclusive to all users from the start so the user can choose which combination of accessibility features that work best for them with their technology. Sites with alternative options tend to be seen as not always equivalent and require an extra step by the user. These widgets appear to solve issues with one click -- but in fact some of the widgets require extensive work by the companies that sell them to make the site more accessible. It's best to put money into designing the site to be inclusive rather than an after-the-fact solution that will need to be updated when the site is updated and may not be robust.

Best Regards,

Jonathan

Jonathan Avila, CPWA
Chief Accessibility Officer
Level Access
<EMAIL REMOVED>
703.637.8957 office
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-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Fix, Lawrence
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2019 10:59 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] "Overlay" accessibility products.

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I'm interested in opinions about accessibility products that "overlay" a web site providing an accessible view of the site, without changing the code of the site. Do they truly make your site compliant? I believe that automated testing tools will still detect errors when crawling the code. Is that OK as long as the user can use the site?

Thanks!

Larry Fix
AIG
Web Site Accessibility
L&R Experience Design
80 Pine St, New York, NY 10005
Tel +1 917 703 3916
<EMAIL REMOVED> | www.aig.com