Accessibility Mode Resources

[indigo scaffold]

The Pittsburgh Children’s Museum example uses snake oil accessibility overlays instead of making the site usable for people with disabilities. Here’s more about it https://overlayfactsheet.com/

What about the existing brand makes it difficult for the site to be accessible from the start? It’s awesome that you’re trying to make something usable for everyone!

[unreal cargo]

We also looked into AccessiBe at work after an accessibility suit and were strongly advised against it. Just a theme update and some fixes like adding missing alt text brought our Google Lighthouse score up to 97 from 70.

[sturdy fjord]

Thanks Jacquelyn! That is really helpful!

[sturdy fjord]

Thank you! I advocated hard for accessible colors as well as other accessibility features.
The owner decided they wanted to stay with their company brand colors. I explained what the consequences could be, I showed them why changing the colors would improve the experience for color blind users, but they wanted to keep magenta as their main site color. The compromise was the accessibility mode. I was able to get the text contrast and text size of the main page within WCAG guidelines. I am trying to learn and incorporate best practices for accessibility into their work to the best of my ability. Please let me know if you have any feedback or resources. What do you normally do in situations like this?

[indigo scaffold]

If the areas of accessibility concern are primarily around color, I would try to create examples that demonstrated how to incorporate their brand into a broader palette (think of it as extending the brand rather than replacing it) or experience that is more accessible (also considering logical document structure, keyboard navigable, alt text for images, prefers reduced motion, etc.)

While it may not be the case in this instance, I suspect that they don't realize there is a lot of middle ground between keeping things exactly how they are and changing everything.

Accessibility isn't just accommodating people with disabilities—it's about creating a better experience for everyone.

It sounds like you've already headed down this path to little success though. Perhaps instead of an "accessibility mode" it's more like the light mode/dark mode toggles you see, where you could provide an alternate experience without the default being exclusionary?

[sturdy fjord]

I agree, they are focused on the branding of their existing social media accounts which are very pink and they dont want to say they are rebranding. Color is definitely not the only accessibility improvement that I made in the redesign, it is the only one I have had issues implementing. In their mind updating the color to magenta to have better contrast is a compromise in itself. They have had no problem with alt text, keyboard navigation, or reduced motion changes I have made.

[indigo scaffold]

Instead of changing the color itself, could you change how it is used? Make it an accent or set against a color with sufficient contrast? Or use the original combinations only at sufficiently large sizes or for decorative images?

[sturdy fjord]

Yes, the contrast is now sufficient in all of the uses of the magenta after I redesigned it, it just is not as equal of an experience as it would be if the magenta were replaced with a color that both red-green colorblind and typically sighted people could see the same, such as blue; blue/yellow colorblindness is very rare. I also made sure that color sight is not necessary to differentiate between navigational elements.
I just think if you are creating a user experience, and you have the option of giving them a colorful vs neutral experience why would you not give them color and make the experience more delightful to everyone? In this case, I have advocated as much for this as I can, but this has also been a learning experience.