- Introduction, definition, and history of web accessibility overlays
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+ What is a web accessibility overlay?
- Overlays are a broad term for technologies aimed at improving the - accessibility of a website by applying third-party source code (typically - JavaScript) to make improvements to the front-end code of the website. -
-Website add-on products purporting to improve accessibility go back to the - late 1990s with products like Readspeaker - and Browsealoud. Both - of which added text-to-speech capabilities to the website(s) on which they - were installed.
-Later, similar products came to market that added additional tools to - their software that allow user-based control of things like font-sizes and - changes to the web pages colors so that contrast is improved. Products like - Userway, EqualWeb, AudioEye, User1st, MaxAccess, FACIL'iti, Purple Lens, and accessiBe fall into this category. - These products are sometimes also white labelled under additional names and the above is not an exhaustive list of - products with which this Fact Sheet is aimed at.
+ Overlays are a broad term for technologies aim to improve the accessibility of a website. They apply third-party source code (typically JavaScript) to make improvements to the front-end code of the website. +Website add-on products claiming to improve accessibility go back to the late 1990s with products like Readspeaker + and Browsealoud. They added text-to-speech capabilities to the website(s) on which they were installed.
+Then similar products came to market that added more tools to their software. These allow user-based control of things like font-sizes and colors to improve readability.
+Some newer overlay products aim to fix any problems in the site's code that are preventing assistive technology from being used easily. They apply a script to the page which scans the code and automatically attempts to repair the problem.
+Products like Userway, EqualWeb, AudioEye, User1st, MaxAccess, FACIL'iti, Purple Lens, and accessiBe are known as accessibility overlays. They are sometimes white labelled (sold under other names), so this is not a complete list of the type of products discussed on this page.
Strengths and weaknesses of overlay “widgets”
- Overlay widgets are unnecessary and are poorly placed in the - technology stack. + Overlay widgets are unnecessary and are poorly placed in the technology stack.
As stated above, some overlay products contain widgets which present a series of controls that modify the presentation of the page they're on.