The Accessibility button is the front door to everything the plugin does for your visitors. This article walks through what a visitor meets: the button, the one question on the first visit, and the panel itself, part by part.
The button:
The button carries the universal access symbol, so people who look for it find it. It sits where you put it: a corner, the middle of either edge, or your site header when the ResultsAiX Theme is active. Visitors press it, or press Alt + A on a keyboard (Option + A on a Mac), and the panel opens beside it.
You choose its place, style, size, colour and word on the Reading tools tab. See The Button: Placement, Style, Size, Colour And Word.
The one question:
The first time a visitor opens the panel it asks: Anything making this hard to read? Under it is one line, Pick one and the page adjusts. Your choice stays on this device only. There are six answers.
- Text is small: switches on the Low vision profile (larger text, clear letters, links and headings marked, a big cursor).
- Hard to focus: switches on the ADHD and focus profile (a reading mask, nothing moves, the paragraph in view stays bright).
- Letters swim: switches on the Dyslexia profile (a reading font, wider letters and lines, a reading guide).
- Too bright: switches on the Dark colour mode.
- Read it to me: starts Listen straight away. This answer shows only while Listen is switched on.
- It reads fine: leaves the page as you designed it.
After an answer:
The full panel opens with a short note at the top saying what was done, for example Done: larger text, clear letters, links and headings marked. Change any of it below. The visitor can change any part of it from there.
Show me every option instead, under the answers, skips the question and opens the full panel. Once a visitor has answered or skipped it, the panel opens straight to the options on every later visit. You can switch the question off on the Reading tools tab.
What is in the panel:
From top to bottom:
- The panel title, which is your button word, a Reset button that clears every option, and a close button.
- Listen to this page, with a Speed slider and a Voice picker, when Listen is switched on.
- Profiles: five one-press groups of settings.
- Colour and contrast: five modes, one at a time.
- Text: Text size, Line height, Letter spacing, Word spacing, Font and alignment.
- Tools: ten reading aids, each one a switch.
- On this page: a map of the headings on the page, and the keyboard shortcuts.
- The foot of the panel.
Each part has its own article: The Five Reading Profiles, One By One, The Five Colour Modes And The Text Controls, The Ten Reading Aids, One By One, and Listen, Focus And In Short.
The page map:
On this page lists up to 40 headings from the page, from main headings down to the fourth level, leaving out menus, headers and footers. Press one and the panel closes and the page jumps to that heading. A page with no headings says No headings on this page.
Keyboard shortcuts:
Press Keyboard shortcuts under the page map to open the list. It shows:
- Alt + A opens or closes the panel (Option + A on a Mac).
- Esc closes it.
- Tab and Shift + Tab move between options. While the panel is open, the keyboard stays inside it.
- Space or Enter switches the option under the cursor.
- Alt + L starts or pauses Listen (Option + L on a Mac). With text selected, it reads just the selection.
- Click a sentence to start reading from there.
When the panel closes, the keyboard goes back to whatever opened it.
The foot of the panel:
- Hide the button for today, when Visitors may hide the button for a day is switched on. The button disappears for 24 hours in that browser, and the panel says Hidden until tomorrow. Alt + A still opens it.
- Accessibility statement, a link to your statement page whenever your site has a published page at /accessibility-statement/.
- A reminder line: Alt + A opens this. Your choices stay on this device only.
- A small ResultsAiX Accessibility line, which you can switch off on the Reading tools tab.
A skip link for keyboard users:
If your page has no skip link of its own, the plugin adds a Skip to the main text link. It stays out of sight until a keyboard user presses Tab, and it jumps straight to the article. Most modern themes, including the default WordPress themes, already have their own skip link, and then the plugin adds nothing.
A real example:
A reader arrives at Raised Beds You Can Reach From A Chair on yoursite.com, finds the text small and presses the Accessibility button. The question appears. She taps Text is small. The post grows, the letters change to a clearer font, the headings and links get a gold outline, and the panel tells her what it did. Next week she comes back and the post is already large: her choice was remembered in her browser.
Where choices are kept:
Every choice is saved in the visitor's own browser, for your site only, and applied before the page paints on the next visit, so nothing flashes. Nothing about the visitor is saved on your server. See Privacy And Performance: What Is Stored And What Is Sent.
Tips:
- To see the first visit again yourself, open your site in a private window.
- Reset at the top of the panel puts the page back exactly as you designed it.
- On a phone the panel opens as a sheet from the bottom of the screen. See Using The Accessibility Panel On A Phone.