> Stop using the site immediately and consult a qualified ophthalmologist. Seriously, no static display on a modern and correctly adjusted VDU such as a computer monitor or phone screen should ever be inducing headaches or eyestrain in a healthy individual when properly used for reasonable time periods, and with sufficient breaks.
If it is, you may have an underlying health condition which has otherwise gone un-noticed.
So they’re saying that they’re aware that their website is inaccessible to some people with certain health conditions, and they don’t intend to do anything about it.
That’s like if a grocery store with a staircase at the front door put up a sign that says, “If you have trouble climbing these stairs, consult your doctor. No person with healthy legs should have trouble climbing these stairs. You may have a health condition.”
I mean, thanks for the advice, but you’re still excluding people.
This is not a grocery store. It’s a niche enthusiast website.
It’s supposed to be fun. Many fun things “exclude” people. Sports for instance. Music. Painting. There might be accessible versions. There are also inaccessible ones that trade off artistic expression over other factors. The internet is a big place. There’s room for all of it.
I disagree. There’s no room for inaccessible websites. You don’t have to trade off anything. You can have both artistic expression and accessibility at the same time. For example, the website can make sure that it’s compatible with the browsers’ reader views. Then users can switch to reader view to read the text in simple black and white.
I disagree. A website that induces eyestrain and headaches in some people is not fully accessible, unless the user has an easy way to switch to a simpler design. Browsers have reader modes, but the website in question is not compatible with them.
As someone who suffers from strong eyestrain issues, I strongly disagree.
There are an infinite number of possible disabilities. Most disabled people already have tools to accommodate.
If you can't see little things, you can zoom.
If you have issue with poor contrasts, you can configure your display and/or your browser and/or your OS.
If you can't see anything, you can use screen readers.
If you have issues with low contrasts, you configure your computer or your browser to override contrasts.
Being "accessible" doesn't mean that your website have to think about every possible disability and that you have to provide a solution. It means that you use decent defaults styles but above all, it means that your website continues to function when it's degraded by the user agent.
Someone with eyestrain issues will not hate you because you made a bad color choice for his disability. But he will probably hate you if him changing the colors or the zooming ratio renders your website unusable.
edit : Also I have strong issues with contrasts due to amblyopia + astigmatism and this page was a pleasure to read. Black on light gray with slight font shadow is exactly what my eyes need.
I’m not sure that such browser extensions resolve websites from accommodating users with eyestrain/headaches. At the very least, a website with a shrill design should be compatible with the browsers’ reader modes, and the website in question isn’t.
Should the vast majority of the world who do not have those health issues be deprived of its glory, because there is a minority who - very sadly and unfortunately for them - cannot look at it? Should Picasso not have bothered painting since some people are blind? Should Tolstoy not have written War and Peace because some people do not have the reading level to cope with such a complex book? Should Maria Callas not have sung so beautifully because the deaf would never be able to hear her?
If you are there for the content and not the design, then it works fine with a browser like Lynx. Thus all the content is entirely accessible.
A website can be designed so that it adapts to the user’s needs. For example, there exist CSS media features that allow websites to honor the user’s preferences for color scheme, reduced motion, and increased contrast, among others.
(Copy-pasted from other comment:) The author of that website claims that they’ve seen multiple comments that complain about headaches and eyestrain. This is the first item in the FAQ, which suggests that it’s one of the most common complaints.
No. They are sarcastically saying that people making those complaints are doing so figuratively, not literally. Find one person who has genuinely suffered a surprise headache after looking at this site and you’ll have a stronger argument.
Accessibility doesn’t mean everything should be available to everybody at all times. That would be universal direct accessibility, which is impossible. Those without the internet or computer access cannot use a grocery website, but the grocery store is still open, and thus the groceries are still indirectly accessible. Providing an elevator as well as stairs means the 2nd floor is universally accessible, even though some cannot use the stairs.
Here, the content is provided by default with an unusual design. That design is part of their brand experience, which is why it has been posted. Some people cannot view through that experience, but they can still reasonably access the content using assistive technology. Thus the website is indirectly accessible.
Remove the design and you make the experience inaccessible to me. These are trade offs, not absolutes.
> people making those complaints are doing so figuratively, not literally
You’re assuming. It’s probably not a good idea to base one’s website’s accessibility strategy on such assumptions. Headaches and eyestrain are a real problem for many people. For example, people turn on dark mode because they have trouble looking at white backgrounds late at night or early in the morning. The same rule probably applies to bright colors.
> Remove the design and you make the experience inaccessible to me. These are trade offs, not absolutes.
I don’t think trade-offs are necessary. The website can have a shrill design and be accessible at the same time. For example, if the website was compatible with the browsers’ reader modes, then users could view the site in a simple black and white design.
> Should the vast majority of the world who do not have those health issues be deprived of its glory, because there is a minority who - very sadly and unfortunately for them - cannot look at it?
FWIW, the law says yes. And the law is right, IMO: we should not deprive a minority of their rights just because the majority is fine with the status quo.
And everyone will become disabled if they don't die young. Eyesight in particular is pretty much guaranteed to decline with age.
They may be referring to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act [1], which:
> ...requires federal agencies and any institution that receives federal funding to make electronic technology and information equally accessible for individuals with disabilities. This means that an organization's website must have all features just as accessible for individuals with disabilities as these features are for individuals without disabilities. For example, it must be equally easy for an individual with a disability to find information about an organization's services on their website as it is for non-disabled individuals to access this information.
This is an American law, but obviously other countries may have their own equivalents.
> I don't think that website is either a US federal agency or receives any US federal funding.
IMHO it's hard to tell either way, because their website wasn't designed with ease-of-use in mind.
That said, here's some facts I was able to gather on their business:
> Whilst IT research remains our primary focus, we now offer executive high-end commercial IT services to organisations with unique problems to solve.
> ...we also have a large body of knowledge of older systems, many of which have now gone full-circle and fallen into disuse, technology that has been abandoned and forgotten. We occasionally do projects involving those, especially when nobody else seems to remember how they worked. Our knowledge-base includes legacy programming languages such as Fortran, data conversion from obscure file formats, and even assembly language coding on various platforms.
Based on these quotes, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that they have clients in government.
OK, your comment here made me gird my loins and actually put up with reading the rest of their website.
Anything is possible, I suppose, but everything I've seen on that site leads me to think it's not a company at all, but a personal hobbyist's website, or perhaps that of a hobbyist club.
Oh for sure, I definitely also get "hobbyist" vibes from this. I'm not in this thread to persuade anyone that this is a federal contractor's corporate page. My original comment was, more than anything, an attempt to answer the question "Which law?"
> The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in everyday activities.
> Should the vast majority of the world who do not have those health issues be deprived of its glory, because there is a minority who - very sadly and unfortunately for them - cannot look at it?
The key words from the comment are: "cannot look at it"
For comparison, some other similar discriminatory phrases from history: "cannot swim in it", "cannot drink from it", "cannot ride on it", "cannot enter it", "cannot buy it"
So because they cannot look at the design, that's discrimination, even if they _are_ able to access the content itself? Why don't you take legal action against them?
> even if they _are_ able to access the content itself?
Just as a non-wheelchair accessible store is an example of discrimination, even if someone in a wheelchair could conceivably gain access to it by dragging themselves up the steps with their arms.
> Why don't you take legal action against them?
Because I'd honestly rather they do the right thing for the right reasons. Lawsuits should be a means of last resort.
And honestly, I'm not rich enough to fund a legal campaign. I'll leave that to someone with more money than I.
If the user can use reasonable measures (such as different settings, or an alternative browser) to access the content, that's not at all the same as asking a wheelchair user to drag themselves up the stairs.
There is absolutely no legal requirement to either spend a fortune on designers, or reduce your website to some boring text-only mush, in the name of "accessibility". The website in question is accessible via a screen-reader, but even if it wasn't, they are not in a market where broad accessibility would be considered a legal requirement. If that were the case, half the websites on the internet would be taken offline.
Do you actually know someone who can't read the text, or are you concern trolling?
Since you quoted and responded to it, it seems you are in agreement with the site authors. There are 10 themes. do all of them make any one person's eyes bleed?
> Do you actually know someone who can't read the text, or are you concern trolling?
The author of that website claims that they’ve seen multiple comments that complain about headaches and eyestrain. This is the first item in the FAQ, which suggests that it’s one of the most common complaints.
> There are 10 themes. do all of them make any one person's eyes bleed?
The theme selector is at the bottom of the page. It’s unlikely that a person who gets a headache/eyestrain from the design will find it in time.
So the answer is no, you don't know anyone who can't read the text.
People post all kind of things online, especially hyperbole. As one of the other FAQ questions notes a lot of people also complain about their eyes bleeding, but this has never actually happened.
I once worked at a place where we shifted some content from a two column layout to three columns. We had users telling us it was literally giving them headaches and making them feel ill. This despite the fact that it now looked basically like the rest of our content. You absolutely cannot take all user complaints seriously.
So they’re saying that they’re aware that their website is inaccessible to some people with certain health conditions, and they don’t intend to do anything about it.
That’s like if a grocery store with a staircase at the front door put up a sign that says, “If you have trouble climbing these stairs, consult your doctor. No person with healthy legs should have trouble climbing these stairs. You may have a health condition.”
I mean, thanks for the advice, but you’re still excluding people.