Adaptive strategies
Disabled people use many different tools and techniques to customise their interaction with web content.
On this page
- What are adaptive strategies?
- Customising how content is presented
- Navigating content
- Supporting adaptive strategies
What are adaptive strategies?
Adaptive strategies are techniques that disabled people use with their software and hardware — for example, web browsers and assistive technologies (AT) — when consuming web content. These techniques modify the presentation of and interaction with web content to make it easier to understand and use.
For more information on AT, see the Knowledge Area: Assistive technologies.
Customising how content is presented
Disabled people often configure their software to customise the presentation of content according to their individual needs and preferences.
Audio
Text transcripts
People with hearing or learning impairments may want to access the text transcript of audio content as an alternative to listening to it.
To understand more about user needs for consuming audio content through a text transcript, see Understanding Success Criterion 1.2.1: Audio-only and Video-only (Pre-recorded) — W3C.
Meeting the Web Accessibility Standard
When a fully descriptive text transcript for pre-recorded audio-only media is provided that presents equivalent information, it meets WCAG 2 Success Criterion 1.2.1 Audio-only and Video-only (Pre-Recorded) (Level A).
When a fully descriptive text transcript for pre-recorded synchronised media (video with audio) is provided that presents equivalent information, it meets WCAG 2 Success Criterion 1.2.3 Audio Description or Media Alternative (Prerecorded) (Level A).
Sound and volume
People with hearing impairments may want to;
- adjust the volume of audio content without changing the system-level volume setting
- turn off background sounds.
People with learning impairments may want to turn off sound notifications if they find them intrusive or distracting.
To understand more about user needs for controlling sound, see Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.2: Audio Control — W3C.
Meeting the Web Accessibility Standard
When any audio on a web page plays automatically for more than 3 seconds and a mechanism is available to pause or stop the audio, or to control the volume separately from the system-level volume setting, it meets WCAG 2 Success Criterion 1.4.2 Audio Control (Level A).
Brightness and colours
People with sensitivity to light, low vision or colour blindness may want to make content easier to see by:
- changing the overall brightness of their display
- changing the contrast between text and background
- choosing different colour combinations
- inverting colours
- changing to greyscale.
To understand more about user needs for reducing screen brightness, or changing text contrast or colours, see:
- The 5 types of Visual Impairments — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C
- Brightness and Color — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C
- How users change colours on websites — GOV.UK.
Columns
People with vision impairments may want to change text in multiple columns to one continuous column of text to make it easier to read and so that they:
- do not have to scroll up several screens to get from the bottom of one column to the top of the next
- can more easily find the scroll bar and cursor.
To understand more about the readability issues with columns for some users, see:
- Reflow to a Single Column — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C
- Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.10: Reflow — W3C.
Meeting the Web Accessibility Standard
Except for parts of content which require two-dimensional layout for usage or meaning, content meets WCAG 2 Success Criterion 1.4.2 Reflow (Level AA) when it can be presented without loss of information or functionality, and without requiring scrolling in 2 dimensions for:
- vertical scrolling content at a width equivalent to 320 CSS pixels
- horizontal scrolling content at a height equivalent to 256 CSS pixels.
Font
People with vision or learning impairments may want to change the font face (also called font family or typeface) of text to make it easier to read.
To understand how to provide users with a list of fonts to choose from, see Font — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C.
Hyphenation
People with vision or learning impairments may want to turn hyphenation off to make words easier to understand.
To understand more about why some disabled people prefer or dislike hyphenation, see Hyphenation — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C.
Images
People with vision or learning impairments may want to access a short text description for simple, meaningful images, or a long description for complex informative images, to understand the information that they convey.
To understand more about user needs for text alternatives that convey the equivalent information in meaningful images, see Understanding Success Criterion 1.1.1: Non-text Content — W3C.
For guidance on providing good text alternatives for images, see Text alternatives — Web Content Type: Images.
Meeting the Web Accessibility Standard
When meaningful non-text content that is presented to the user has a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose, it meets WCAG 2 Success Criterion 1.1.1 Non-text content (Level A).
Interface elements
People with vision or learning impairments may want to change the size of interface elements (such as accordions, messages boxes, tab bars and text input fields) on the page to better perceive information.
To understand more about user needs for increasing or decreasing the size of interface elements, see Size of All Elements — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C.
Line length
People with vision or learning impairments may want to set the line length for blocks of text to make it easier to read.
To understand more about user needs for reading lines of text, see:
- Line Length — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C
- Tracking — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C.
Pop-up windows, animations and sounds
People with learning impairments may want to turn off or block features on a website that disorient or distract them, such as:
- pop-up windows
- animations
- sounds that a website automatically starts playing.
To understand more about user needs for avoiding distraction when consuming web content, see Understanding Success Criterion 2.2.2: Pause, Stop, Hide — W3C.
Meeting the Web Accessibility Standard
Content that is presented in parallel with other content meets WCAG 2 Success Criterion 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide (Level A) when there is a mechanism to pause, stop, hide, or control its frequency when it:
- is moving or blinking for more than 5 seconds
- starts scrolling automatically for more than 5 seconds
- updates automatically (unless the auto-updating is part of an activity where it’s essential).
Spacing
People with vision or learning impairments may want to adjust the line height of blocks of text and/or change the spacing between:
- letters
- words
- lines
- elements, such as headings
- margins and borders.
This helps them to read more easily and to do things like track content and group related information.
To understand more about user needs for the spacing of blocks of text and elements, see:
- Spacing for Reading — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C
- Tracking — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C.
Meeting the Web Accessibility Standard
When HTML text has all of the following properties and values set, and there is no loss of content or functionality, it meets WCAG 2 Success Criterion 1.4.12 Text Spacing (Level AA):
- line height (line spacing) is set to at least 1.5 times the font size
- spacing following paragraphs is set to at least 2 times the font size
- letter spacing (tracking) is set to at least 0.12 times the font size
- word spacing is set to at least 0.16 times the font size.
Text size
People with vision impairments, such as low vision acuity or tunnel vision, may want to change the text (font) size of all text on the page without zooming the entire interface.
To understand more about user needs for larger text in order to perceive letters, see:
- Text size — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C
- Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.4: Resize text — W3C.
Meeting the Web Accessibility Standard
When text can be resized without assistive technology up to 200% without loss of content or functionality, it meets WCAG 2 Success Criterion 1.4.4 Resize Text (Level AA).
Text style
People with vision or learning impairments may want to:
- customise specific text elements, such as headings, lists and paragraph text — this helps to make it easier to see how content is organised
- change the text style, such as underline, italic, bold or capitalisation, in blocks of text — this helps to make it easier to read.
To understand more about user needs for distinguishing text elements and reading blocks of text with or without text style or capitalisation, see:
- Identifying Elements — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C
- Style — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C
- Capitalization — Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision — W3C.
Videos
People with hearing or learning impairments may want to turn on captions to read video content as it is playing, or to access the descriptive text transcript of a video as an alternative to watching or listening to the content.
To understand more about user needs for captions and descriptive text transcripts when playing video content, see:
Meeting the Web Accessibility Standard
When a pre-recorded video is captioned, it meets WCAG 2 Success Criterion 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded) (Level A).
When a live video is captioned, it meets WCAG 2 Success Criterion 1.2.4 Captions (Live) (Level AA).
When a video has a descriptive text transcript, it meets WCAG 2:
Navigating content
Pointer speed
People with vision or mobility impairments may want to change the speed at which the pointer moves on the screen — for example, when they are controlling it using a mouse or head wand.
Supporting adaptive strategies
To support the adaptive strategies that disabled people use to consume and interact with web content:
- use web content technologies in ways that support accessibility — see the Knowledge Area: Accessibility supported technologies
- follow user experience best practices to make web content accessible
- code Web Content Types correctly to meet WCAG requirements
- test that web content works with common software, hardware and assistive technologies in the ways that disabled people use them. See also Testing with assistive technologies — Knowledge Area: Assistive technologies — How disabled people use the web.