A leading sight charity has stressed the need for inclusive web design after rail websites switched to black and white to mark Prince Philip’s death, leaving partially sighted people struggling.
Network Rail and National Rail websites turned from colour to greyscale in a tribute to the Duke of Edinburgh. The gesture backfired after customers highlighted accessibility issues and complained they could no longer use the website.
Other train operators, including CrossCountry and Northern rail, had also removed colour from their websites.
One Twitter user said: “National Rail have coloured their entire website grey to ‘mourn Prince Philip’, rendering the whole website completely useless to people with visual impairments. The UK has completely lost the plot.”
Robin Spinks, the innovation lead for the Royal National Institute of Blind People, said: “As someone who is registered severely sight impaired, good colour contrast on a website is incredibly important. A lack of this makes it difficult for me to read the content and causes headaches and eye strain. It leaves me feeling unwelcome as a customer.
“Although I can understand why an organisation might make a change to its website in circumstances such as this, any change should be inclusive and accessible [...]