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Why accessibility overlays hurt more than help
Do you still believe that the greatest threat to the inclusion of people with disabilities in the digital space is the lack of awareness from designers who think they understand what inclusive design means? The general apathy of developers who can’t be bothered to make their code keyboard accessible? Or the sheer complexity of the international accessibility guidelines that have become so dense over the years that even experts are starting to feel uncomfortable about them? While that might have been true in previous years, in 2021… think again.
Arguably, while all three of these things have contributed for the longest time to stacking the deck against people who have disabilities, none of these even come close to what I believe to be the single, greatest threat ever faced for inclusion of people with disabilities in the digital space today. And that, my friends, is accessibility overlays, and the vendors who promote them.
For those of you who are unclear about “accessibility overlays’’, think of them as technical solutions, typically powered through JavaScript, that are meant to turn an entire website from a jumbled mess of inaccessible code into a paragon of accessibility for everyone, through a single line of code. That sounds amazing on paper, and the marketing teams of these vendors are quite good at selling the pipe dream.
Such solutions provide accommodations meant to adapt websites and applications to the needs of people with disabilities, yet over 67% of people to whom they are intended are massively saying such features are not very, or not at all effective.
The companies that sell these overlays promise you that thanks to their code, everyone, regardless of disabilities, challenges, or circumstances, will now have a positive experience on your website. Clearly, nothing could be further from the truth.
Setting the record straight
Much like snake oil salesmen in the far west, crooks who advertise caffeine-infused underwear that promise to destroy your fat cells, or tobacco giants who claim that light cigarettes are much better for your health, accessibility overlays prey on the gullibility of the desperate, in order to make a quick buck with a product that ultimately causes more harm than good.
