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Re: Accessibility Tools for Website Visitors

for

From: Jerra Strong
Date: Oct 29, 2021 8:58AM

I think if you do too much of this, you run into overlay territory (
overlayfactsheet.com). And of course, you still have to make sure that if a
user brings their own adaptive strategy or AT, it still works with the
site.


On Fri, Oct 29, 2021 at 7:56 AM Mark Magennis < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> There is a view that if someone needs larger text, high contrast, etc. to
> view a website then either they will already have it (e.g. by using some
> assistive technology that provides it) or they will never reach your site
> or use the web in the first place because this will be the only site on the
> web that is accessible to them. That's overstating it of course but it
> makes a valid point. However, anyone who has spent time with people with
> disabilities using the web or been such a person may realise that in
> practice many people struggle due to things like text size and contrast and
> don't have the tools or knowledge to fix these issues so they often welcome
> this type of functionality. Particularly, say, someone who has recently
> acquired a disability and want to access the site of a relevant service
> organization. They may struggle to get there but be pleased if it offers
> built in tools to ease the struggle, if only in that one silo. So it makes
> a lot of sense for an organization serving people with vision impairments
> for instance to have tools on its site that helps people make text and
> other content more visible to them if they don't yet have or know how to
> use general assistive technologies.
>
> So my view is that although providing bespoke tools on every website is
> not the right approach, in principle there is nothing wrong with providing
> extra tools on specific websites that may help their specific users
> configure the site easily to better suit their needs and preferences. As
> long as these tools are easy to ignore and as long as they don't make
> changes that interfere with the tools (assistive technologies) those users
> might already be using.
>
> There are some drawbacks though. The main one being that when a site has
> these tools, its easy for the developers, managers, future developers, or
> future managers to think that's job done for accessibility. It isn't of
> course but you do see that a lot. Sites that have accessibility overlay
> tools or read-out-loud tools on them and think they're now fully
> accessible. The basic site should be maximally accessible and these tools
> should just be thought of as tools to increase the diversity of needs and
> preferences that the site can serve.
>
> Mark
>
>