Contributed by Joel Zimba, Special Projects Coordinator, MDTAP
Until the other day, I had no idea what a “carousel” was – in regards to Web design. However, I realized I had run into them on a number of occasions and found them irritating. In this article, an assistant director of Web AIM, whose web Accessibility Tips we often post, discusses the evils of a carousel for visually impaired users, and then goes on to explain why they are just bad design all round.
What is most notable to me is how a simple notion like not having text change on a page without reason takes a back seat to someone’s notion of visually compelling design. The usefulness and appeal of the carousel is debunked in the article. This is the case with many aspects of design which reduce accessibility.
Moral of the story is that not only tagging your graphics and labeling your form fields will improve accessibility for everyone and make your page more useful, but designing for readability and inclusiveness will increase overall market appeal as well.
