Members with disabilities

[fdk]

Have you ever experienced a situation whereby a member has disclosed or mentioned a disability to you and requested a change or modification to your site to help support them to navigate or access it?

It's probably not well known that it's thought that upto 10% of regular internet users have some sort of disability that affects their ability to navigate some websites, so as admins we're potentially inadvertently excluding a lot of people from accessing our sites simply as we don't realise this section of our demographic sometimes requires extra support in accessing our sites.

I've been leading on a project at work lately to update our website to be compatible with screen readers, devices that "intelligently" read information from a website to blind people in a way that makes it easier for them to navigate the web. Similarly, we are piloting features that allow automatic AI BSL (British Sign Language) interpreters to appear alongside our video content for deaf users.

Does anyone else have any experience of these issues on their own forums or communities, or can you think of times you've made adjustments or changed things to be more "friendly" towards those with disabilities?

 

[Bryn]

No, but I do try and make some adjustments to benefit those with visual impairments, such as having more than one dark theme and larger text where possible.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I never had anyone mention that they couldn't browse my websites due to a disability. I do know there's a blind individual on Sonic Retro, he uses apps that read the text for him and also respond to threads for him as well so he can still post just fine. Honestly I never really thought about this until I read this thread. Maybe I should look into modifying some of the themes on my forums so there's bigger text.

 

[Malcolm]

I can't say I've had someone with a disability reach out, but I've had a few people mention that certain colours are much harder to see. In that case, I would just update the colours so it's easier to read.

As a developer I do my best to follow best practices relating to accessibly. I generally follow the resources down below to ensure that I'm compliant as much as possible (You may have seen me post these elsewhere):

• https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/
• https://www.a11yproject.com/
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility
• https://webaim.org/
• https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ (this tests out if the colours you're using are appropriate)

 

[Uptrendfinancialsignal]

It would be great if website owners can integrate disability features on their platform to make it a lot easier for people with disabilities to access them. I was on a forum where someone with a disability suggested to the owner to increase the font of the platform. That is a typical example of what we're talking about: we need to put into consideration people with abilities whenever we are designing our website.

 

[Bawse]

I have a lot of older members, and they said the font sizes were barely readable so I adjusted the font on my forum to make it a little bigger.

 

[Cpvr]

It would be great if website owners can integrate disability features on their platform to make it a lot easier for people with disabilities to access them. I was on a forum where someone with a disability suggested to the owner to increase the font of the platform. That is a typical example of what we're talking about: we need to put into consideration people with abilities whenever we are designing our website.

Running a test through Google’s pagespeed tool can help you diagnose some of your site’s accessibility issues. It can also pinpoint the areas that need to be improved.

PageSpeed Insights

pagespeed.web.dev

 

[InMyOpinion]

I have a TBI and so flashes or fast moving text can make me dizzy and give me migraines. I've never had to ask a forum owner to change their theme or anything on their forum however, I do have a friend that is a photographer and has his own website and I've advised him that the flashing lights on his forum was a little much and if someone was prone to seizures they may have one upon visiting his forum. He's since changed it up. Also, when I went to beauty school when we would watch videos the first few seconds was quickly flashing bright images and I always had to look away for a while so I wouldn't get a splitting headache and start puking.

Other than that I've never had issues nor has any members had issues with my theme/forum before.

 

[otisbooard]

i myself have a disability so i can relate

 

[fdk]

i myself have a disability so i can relate

Thanks for feeling comfortable enough to share that with us otisbooard, out of a technical interest, can you think of a time when you struggled to use a website or certain feature on a website because of your disability? Could you think of a way that the website could have been adapted or better designed to help you with accessibility?