[NFBCS] Accessibility Overlays, what are they and can someone elaborate on them?

[Chris Nestrud]

My understanding is that when you decide to use an overlay you're asking
some other company to provide javascript that changes the UI of your
website in ways that you hope will resolve any accessibility issues.  I'd love to hear from someone having first-hand experience with these
overlays.

This site uses an overlay by accessiBe, https://accessibe.com/.

Here's some background on accessiBe and accessibility overlays:

#accessiBe Will Get You Sued | Adrian Roselli
https://adrianroselli.com/2020/06/accessibe-will-get-you-sued.html

Bolt-on Accessibility - 5 gears in reverse | TPG - The Accessibility Experts
https://developer.paciellogroup.com/blog/2020/05/bolt-on-accessibility-5-gears-in-reverse/

Chris

On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 12:07:17AM -0700, Brian Buhrow via NFBCS wrote:
> 	hello everyone.  Below is a link to a web site that behaves very
> strangely on Safari with iOS and, possibly, other browsers and operating
> systems as well.  The behavior is as follows: 
> 
> 	the first time you open it, the site works beautifully with VoiceOver.
> 
> Then , the second time you open it, and every time there after, it goes
> into a mode where VoiceOver can see no links at all and it says something
> about using the website in screen reader mode.  There is nothing to click
> on and nothing to get out of that page.  Visually, the sentence about Using
> the website in screen reader mode does not appear and, if you turn off
> voiceover, you can use the web site just fine.
> 
> A friend of mine suggested this might be due to something called an
> accessibility overlay, which is loaded with the page and renders the page
> useless with VoiceOver.  More confusingly, however, it seems to only get
> loaded after the page has been loaded and used once.  I assume this is due
> to the page seeing some stored cookie somewhere, but I don't actually know.
> 
> 	So, my questions are: what is an accessibility overlay?  Who makes and
> sells them and how often are they used?
> 
> 	Finally, can someone talk about how they work in general terms and,
> perhaps, give an example of one that works well and is well supported?
> I've never heard of these things before and I'd like to know more about
> them and how to use them, avoide them, etc.  So, any thoughts or discussion
> would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> -thanks
> -Brian
> 
> https://www.appliancepartspros.com/search-alt.aspx?pm=A712
> 
> 
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