Should websites include Accessibility Options? May be and may be not…

In 2013, posted about Accessibility options and Browser Accessibility options and still I see concept of including accessibility is still exist in the minds of web authors. So wanted to reiterate as to why we do not recommend accessibility options embed on to the website.

I still agree that having such options like Increase Font size, decrease font size, change contrast icons may be helpful but for only a few users and not to many. Some of the problems occurs by using these options are:

• Increases development cost: Specially for options like Change contrast, it involves writing additional style sheets and that’s a huge investment. Also one needs to worry about things like what happens to images when contrast is changed, etc.,?
• Less usage: When user comes to a website, it means he or she already have some assistive tools that meets their requirement. So they can continue to use their own tools and technologies and really do not use options provided in the website

What could be done instead is to add information about Braower’s accessibility support, information about assistive technology, what’s the accessbility care taken in the website such as keyboard functionality, etc., in a help page.

Bottom line is let’s invest efforts on where actually needed and avoid unnecessary efforts!