Add new section "Are Overlays Better Than Nothing?"

[karlgroves]

I'd like to propose a new section to the OFS, "Are Overlays Better Than Nothing?".

It would discuss the minimal positive improvements from overlays and likelihood that overlays themselves add new problems.

[abdermaiza]

Maybe these tools are better than nothing for people with low vision, like the ability to change the text spacing, the saturation, the contrast and so on...

[charleshalldesign]

minimal positive improvements

this should still be compared to features the user already has from: operating system; user agent; extensions; or assistive technology. it should not be considered an improvement at all if the feature already exists elsewhere.

[joedolson]

I'm not sure this can be assessed without reference to a specific site. An overlay could happen to have good fixes for the exact problems a website has; or it could exclusively contain fixes that are irrelevant to the site or make it worse.

Agree with @charleshalldesign that any feature that is reproducible in AT, browser, or OS should be disregarded. A feature that travels with the user is always going to be superior to one that only exists on a specific site.

It would require a professional assessment of the site before and after the overlay to judge whether there's been aggregate improvement.

[mrwweb]

One thought I've often had on this front: Anyone who wants to install an overlay likely doesn't have the skills or knowledge to evaluate whether it has actually made things better or for worse. (I'm not 100% sure that's true on an enterprise scale, but I think it's almost always true for small sites.)

Prioritizing that thought leads me to something like: "Installing an overlay is a risk for any site owner because it may not resolve existing problems and may introduce new ones. If you're not sure whether your site is accessible, the best first step is to hire someone or at least test your site with a variety of automated tools to assess the state of the site." (This also addresses many of my clients who want to install an overlay because they didn't realize I had taken care of most of the things they were worrying about.)

[anevins12]

Are we making the case for web authors that already have an accessible website and that are then going the extra mile to help people with disabilities that don’t know how to use assistive technologies? Given that the web is over 95% inaccessible is that an unlikely case?

…

On Thu, 8 Feb 2024 at 09:51, Mark Root-Wiley ***@***.***> wrote: One thought I've often had on this front: Anyone who wants to install an overlay likely doesn't have the skills or knowledge to evaluate whether it has actually made things better or for worse. (I'm not 100% sure that's true on an enterprise scale, but I think it's almost always true for small sites.) Prioritizing that thought leads me to something like: "Installing an overlay is a risk for any site owner because it may not resolve existing problems and may introduce new ones. If you're not sure whether your site is accessible, the best first step is to hire someone or at least test your site with a variety of automated tools to assess the state of the site." (This also addresses many of my clients who want to install an overlay because they didn't realize I had taken care of most of the things they were worrying about.) — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1141 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AARWBYNFOT6NY4RRHU2AAJDYSQAQRAVCNFSM6AAAAABC3EQ5OWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMYTSMZTGA3DKOJRGQ> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[DagA11y]

I like the initiative and to give at least theoretical chances to overlays.

In my experience some features may actually help people and some are often making site even worse. So it really depends on the site and the feature.

I have read comments from some people that liked overlays when they borrow the device and can't use their own settings. I don't think that is very common, but just to mention it.

Almost all sites with overlays I stumbled upon do sometimes come worse with certain features, that needs to be mentioned.

I think that we would need to make a "study" with people with disabilities and us, specialists, testing some pages with and without overlay functionalities, but that can take a lot of time and resources. Maybe we can invite some academics to do that for an scientific article? Maybe IAAP and EDF could initiate this?

On the short run we could perhaps mention that sometimes some features help, but it's more likely that features actually make things worse (my experience at least)

[karlgroves]

Thank you, everyone who's commented so far.

I plan on taking a stab at writing this new section and will cite this issue in the PR and also tag each of you for a review