A Halloween clown costume called Accessibility Overlay. The costume includes the following: “One line” of JavaScript, WCAG compliance and no lawsuits not guaranteed, and good page Performance (lol no).

We were approached to partner with an accessibility company that has their own overlay, we said no. Coincidentally, we saw this tweet by @ScopicEngineer the same day we declined the partnership.

Accessibility overlays come with a host of problems, including overriding a user’s customization settings; they do not reliably work, and often create more harm. Instead, accessibility needs to be considered at every stage of a project and baked into the code from the get-go.

If the “easy fix” is too good to be true, it usually is.

Let’s listen to disabled voices, as they have spoken to the harm of permanent overlay plugins.