WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: "Overlay" accessibility products.

for

From: Lucy Greco
Date: Mar 26, 2019 11:11AM


these products generally have limited use they tend to work on one
disability group and actually cause problems for other disability groups
for example ones that focus on people with reading disabilities may draw
focus to their own toolbar causing screen reader users to have a great deal
of difficulty navigating the page in general you may feel it is a good
solution in a short term but they actually do cause a lot more problems
than you can think of I wouldn't use these ever if you could had all help
it it tends to also give developers a sense of well this tools doing the
work for me so I don't have to and they get out of using best practices
overall

On Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:13 AM Jonathan Avila < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> 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
> Visit us online:
> Website | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Blog
>
>
>
> The information contained in this transmission may be attorney privileged
> and/or confidential information intended for the use of the individual or
> entity named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended
> recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination,
> distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.
>
>