Why screen reader detection on the web is a bad thing
27th of February 2014
On February 26, 2014, the webAIM project published the results of their 5th screen reader user survey. Two questions were new in this survey that pertain to a recently growing desire of some web developers to know whether they’re dealing with assistive technologies on the other end or not. The results were rather shocking to me as a representative of a browser vendor and experienced assistive technology user:
78.4% of respondents were very comfortable or somewhat comfortable with letting a web site know they are using a screen reader. And even 86.5% were very or somewhat comfortable if doing so resulted in better accessibility of the website. For each question, only roughly 2% of respondents answered “I don’t know” to that question.
In my opinion, it should have been the other way around. I took the questionaire myself back in January, and because I am involved in making a web browser and knowing about the various desires by web developers and some standards people, I knew what was meant here, and also knew the implications. I submit, carefully, and without wanting to diminish anyone’s maturity in this matter, that [...]