Meetup.com Removes Accessibility Overlay In Response to WordPress Community’s Concerns
Meetup.com has removed its accessibility overlay, a recent addition to the company’s website that raised concerns with the WordPress community and the broader community of accessibility professionals. The overly was powered by EqualWeb, a product which claims to provide automated compliance with accessibility standards but doesn’t address inaccessibility at the root of the problem. WordPress Community Team leaders requested a meeting with the company and were able to persuade them to take the overlay down and focus on direct improvements to the Meetup.com platform. WordPress community organizer Angela Jin reported that their director of engineering and other team members were “very receptive to our feedback.” “EqualWeb’s widget does scan for accessibility issues, and the original plan was for EqualWeb’s team (real people!) to provide progressive fixes to the overlay,” Jin said. “Meetup’s hope was to provide, over time, a fully accessible overlay.” During the meeting, WordPress’ Community Team representatives contended that overlays create a poor user experience for people who use assistive technology while also ignoring key WCAG issues. This is why there are growing legal and privacy concerns associated with the overlays, which do not deliver on the promise of providing equal and open access to platforms. After reporting on the issue…
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