Making the web easier to see with opportunistic accessibility improvement

Abstract

Many people would find the Web easier to use if content was a little bigger, even those who already find the Web possible to use now. This paper introduces the idea of opportunistic accessibility improvement in which improvements intended to make a web page easier to access, such as magnification, are automatically applied to the extent that they can be without causing negative side effects. We explore this idea with oppaccess.js, an easily-deployed system for magnifying web pages that iteratively increases magnification until it notices negative side effects, such as horizontal scrolling or overlapping text. We validate this approach by magnifying existing web pages 1.6x on average without introducing negative side effects. We believe this concept applies generally across a wide range of accessibility improvements designed to help people with diverse abilities.