Accessibility Overlays

Why Accessibility Overlays Are Not A Good Idea (https://lnkd.in/eb6MX3Uh), a thorough overview of why accessibility overlays are problematic and how to argue with business about why it’s better to implement an accessible solution instead. By Ruben Ferreira Duarte.

To many companies, accessibility overlays feels like a simple, reliable and almost magical way to solve the “accessibility problem” for products with poor accessibility. You install a third-party solution and you are compliant — so goes the thinking.

Behind the scenes, such solutions adjust and manipulate the interface and give users access to an overlay, in which they can customize everything from motion and colors to layout and fonts. But in reality they are temporary bandage solutions.

Once it’s done, typically companies see no need to conduct any accessibility testing — after all, the overlay solution takes care of it all. And this often leads to frustrating and broken experiences — for everyone, including people with disabilities.

I wholeheartedly agree with Ruben when he says that there are no magic solutions to accessibility. Overlays often end the conversation about accessibility, before it even begins. They influence the UI layer, but not the accessibility of content.

Accessibility is not a checklist. With an overlay, at its best, your product might be functional but very difficult to use. At its worst, the third-party solution will entirely change and break the functionality of your website.

Retrofitting accessibility once a product has launched is incredibly hard, expensive and time-consuming. But once we consider accessibility early on in the design and development process, it just becomes a natural part of the process.

As Scott Jehl once said, accessibility is not something we add to a product, but something we start with initially — and risk losing with every single change. Our main task is not to retrofit it, but to retain it throughout the design process.

And: I can only wholeheartedly agree with Ruben when he says that no designer or developer needs “permission” to build accessible solutions. Many of these principles are inherent to what it means to be a designer and developer.

Start small with inclusive thinking early on. Visualize accessibility to everyone with early accessibility testing. You will be surprised how far you can take a product in terms of accessibility once you have accessibility conversations early on.

Useful resources:

Overlay Fact Sheet
https://lnkd.in/e6ZJDGsY

Should I Use An Accessibility Overlay?
https://lnkd.in/eKHyCv-r
https://lnkd.in/eCYu3RW4

Overlay False Claims
https://lnkd.in/ePq9b9Vy

How To Make A Strong Case For Accessibility, by yours truly
https://lnkd.in/e2E74Pjv