I’m approaching this story from the starting assumption that accessibility overlays are a problem. So I’m not going to spend time on arguments for or against the technology. I’m also making the assumption that we all agree that the tool itself must be accessible, and won’t discuss that question here. I am interested in one key question: where do we draw the line between a potentially useful tool and an evil overlay? What are the characteristics that make an overlay […]
Continue reading “Is it an evil overlay? How can you tell?” »Tag: overlays
The Dangerous Path of the Accessibility Overlay
Without naming any names – because it doesn’t really matter which tool it is – an accessibility overlay is a tool that fundamentally harms the future of web site accessibility. The nature of accessibility testing is to expose issues to a human being who can then act on those issues. An accessibility overlay, by nature, avoids exposing what problems it has addressed to a human being. This is a crucial difference that has a long-term impact on the accessibility of […]
Continue reading “The Dangerous Path of the Accessibility Overlay” »Reminder: Accessibility can’t be solved automatically
The other day, Mike Gifford shared a post from Small Business Trends that talked about how free accessibility plugins cause problems for small business, in which my plug-in WP Accessibility was cited. In that message, he expressed that he was sorry to see my plug-in lumped in with other shady web site accessibility toolbars. But, in all honesty, I’m OK with that. WP Accessibility is definitely different from most of these other so-called accessibility toolbars, in that I’ve worked hard […]
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