Why 2 Axis Scrolling is a Total Nightmare for Low Vision/Legally Blind Users
Imagine going to a webpage, search engine, or mobile application and having to not only scroll up and down but also side to side, just read content or view elements like images, videos, tables and forms. This is exactly what it is like for low vision and legally blind users when using pinch-to-zoom on mobile or tablet devices and browser zoom features on a desktop device.
Overflow can be quite annoying, but it also adds significant time for users with vision impairments. Instead of skimming content or simply reading it as users without visual impairments would, the content only appears to us in chunks or pieces. We have to scroll along the x-axis to view the rest of the line or page on the screen.
This problem persists across multiple browsers and devices including desktops, mobile devices, and even tablets. Furthermore, it does not pertain just to websites; it includes documents, search engines, platforms, and many other online-based experiences.
Think of it this way, LinkedIn often states approximately how long a featured article takes to read. In theory, this is useful, but only to the unimpaired sighted user. When someone like myself, a legally blind user, opens that article and zooms in, the sentences require scrolling on both axes to consume which adds up to double or triple the time to read an article.
When you begin to explore this challenge when using mobile devices and tablets, the situation seems to worsen due to swipe gestures and other native functions. A prime example is in the browser on these devices, if you begin the swipe from too close to the side of the screen, you will go to the previous page when swiping left to right, or advance to the next page if swiping right to left.
What doesn’t make sense to me is, again as a legally blind user who also has built a number of websites, if there is such a need for websites to be responsive, and resized to fit the width of the screen on a mobile, tablet, and desktops, why isn’t something like overflow control being incorporated more often?
Programs like Microsoft Word have hit the nail on the head by allowing the pageview to be manipulated by the end-user. When I was a student, many of my textbooks had this issue, and my solution was to copy large chunks of text that I needed to read and study into Microsoft Word. Instead of using the print layout view, I would opt to use the “read mode” or “web layout” simply because zooming in didn’t cut the words off, it would move them to the next line down or even to the next page.
When it comes to desktop views, fixing this issue is as simple as adding overflow commands to the theme, page, or global settings.
When you move to mobile and tablet views, the task becomes more difficult due to the fact that the zoom feature is touch-based rather than keyboard and mouse inputs. The easiest way I have seen to remedy this is to build font resizing right into the webpage, in the header. Websites like Outlook Business Solutions have this feature in the global header of the website and it works across device types.
With a lot of focus placed on the three senses in digital accessibility, namely sight, sound, and touch, oftentimes only the extremes of these sensory experiences are considered. For example, screen readers and refreshable braille displays for people who are blind, closed captions for the deaf, and full keyboard functionality for persons with physical disabilities.
It’s important to note that some drag and drop website design platforms like SquareSpace have overflow control built right into their templates to automatically control overflow on desktop views.The three screenshots below display a Google search of “Legally blind” at three different zoom points on a desktop view.
In the first image, it is at the default view of 100%.
The second image is at 200% with part of the right side of the screen cut off.
The third image is at 300% zoom and shows only the top left corner of the browser which contains the Google logo, search entry, and the tabs: all, images, videos, shopping.
While we are still closing the gap towards universal access, I believe we are on the right path. I strongly encourage developers, designers, creators, and all people publishing on the world wide web to consider all aspects of accessibility. In the last few years, systems, platforms, and tools have become so customizable to one’s preferences that it is only a matter of time before we all can take part!