Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility

Social impact of depersonalising language such as 'the colourblind'
Please tell me if this is in the wrong place. I live with a motor neurone disease but I am not defined by living with a motor neurone disease, I am defined by being a person. I was shocked upon reading the page on Colour blindness that within 5 lines of the start of the article the ableist social convention that defines people as their problem and not as people appears in the form 'the colorblind automatically develop...' These are people first and colour blindness is a secondary attribute, so we should always be aiming at modern best practice which is to use 'people who live with colour blindness...' or 'people who are colourblind...' or 'those who are...'. The section entitled 'Effects' starts 'A colorblind subject...' and in the same sentence has 'the colourblind...'. They are not scientific specimens as 'subject' suggests, nor are they a problem as 'the colourblind' suggests. These are living, breathing people not objects, so I am certain that there must be a place for this discussion but cannot find it and thus put it here. Please forgive me, I am English and have used colour throughout this paragraph, but absolutely accept the the American spelling, color, is acceptable throughout Wikipedia. DrRickZTTwo (talk) 11:59, 1 August 2023 (UTC)


 * This is a fine place to put this concern. That said, I'm confused: do you object to "The French have developed a long history of bread and cheese" or "Peruvians are proud of their Incan heritage"? ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 12:05, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks Justin, I am glad I got the correct location. I am quite certain that if French and Peruvian people object to being referred to thus, they will raise the issue. My concern is with those of us who live with disabilities and are defined by society as being a problem. I do not regard being French or Peruvian as being either a disability or a problem and thus both are perfectly acceptable. Does that distinction make sense? Personally I get called 'the afflicted', 'the disabled, and 'the sick', but I am first and foremost a person. It is difficult enough living with a disability without people treating you as though you have ceased to exist and become a problem. People who live with colour blindness undoubtedly live with a disability, but it does not define who they are, being merely one of a number of attributes that they, as a person, possess. Rick DrRickZTTwo (talk) 12:18, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Sure, but 1.) by definition you hear from those who  object and 2.) which qualities/properties/aspects of a person do you think can be adjectives in front of nouns and which ones not? ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 12:20, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this Justin, I suspect that the resources which you have listed below are going to be part of the answer to that question, but ultimately the answer is whether or not there is any social stigma which can be attached to such a word. I am the scientist, the biologist, the educator, the teacher and the unexpectedly successful artist, I am not the sick, the disabled, the autistic, the afflicted or the dying. It is a line which is drawn by social convention and social convention is decided by consensus through discussion, like this one. I am getting tired, so may have to come back to this later - my apologies. DrRickZTTwo (talk) 12:57, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * No worries, friend: we all sleep. Happy to have the conversation when/as you can. ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:00, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Do you find this language issue to be a widespread problem in Wikipedia? Or is Color blindness the only example you have seen? If it's the latter, then the correct venue for discussion is Talk:Color blindness. But actually the best course of action is to Be bold and edit Color blindness yourself.
 * I'm happy to edit it for you, but I do have one question: What about the phrase "colour-blind people" or "colourblind people"? Mgnbar (talk) 12:25, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see, from the materials that you've posted below, that "colour-blind people" is not sufficient to fix the issue. Thanks. Mgnbar (talk) 12:49, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you Mgnbar, both for your first question which is a good one and is going to require some research, and for getting to the resources that Justin posted before I did and answering your own question - much appreciated. I have used up what energy I have today, so will need to stop now, but will come back and, if you have not already edited it, edit the colour blindness page, once I have read the resources. I will also, probably fairly slowly, research other areas to see how widespread such language is. Thank you. DrRickZTTwo (talk) 13:04, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I've made numerous edits to Color blindness, but there's still much to do, both on this issue and other issues in that article. Mgnbar (talk) 13:29, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you Mgnbar, I visited the page and you have already vastly improved it. Elsewhere I came across a welcome message (from 2012 - in another lifetime before Nortriptyline damaged my memory - now mostly fixed by many years of hard work, and the rare motor neurone disease with which I live turned my life upside down). It mentioned using four tildes in signing off on discussion pages. On this page it appears to have inserted the information on username and time automatically, perhaps because I initiated the discussion. Although having said that, inserting them here has automatically added them to the preview. DrRickZTTwo (talk) 00:56, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Relevant parts of the Manual of Style:
 * MOS:MEDLANG
 * Manual_of_Style/Psychology
 * Relevant discussions on the topic:
 * Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_222
 * More
 * ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 12:34, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you Justin, I shall work my way through these resources, and will also introduce my wife to them, because in life outside Wikipedia, she is a Bishop's advisor on Accessibility in a Diocese of the Church of England and there is no doubt that she can learn from the relevant parts of the Manual of Style and the Person-first_language archived discussion. She may also be able to contribute to the continuing evolution of the Manual of Style, if she chooses to become part of the Wikipedia team. Thank you once again for asking intelligent questions and for being so welcoming and kind. DrRickZTTwo (talk) 01:14, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @DrRickZTTwo Thank you for bringing this up. After @Mgnbar made the changes this summer, I looked into this fascinating topic and learned a lot. My interpretation is: while motor neuron disease may fall better under the medical model of disability and therefore demand people-first language, colorblindness falls better under the social model of disability. To avoid the medicalization of colorblindness, I feel avoiding people-first language is the best option (for colorblindness specifically). Curran919 (talk) 22:53, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Low vision, but not blind
I just read this wikiproject page and perused the talk page. Are there guidelines for formatting to accommodate users who might have low vision issues (not actually blind, and not using any accommodative technology)?

I have poor eyesight (that's all I'm going to say on it) and, as examples, I like a lot of whitespace (glossary style rather than bulleted lists which present as walls of text), no unnecessary table formats (difficult to edit), and simpler images which show the subject (rather than 'busy' images which contain the subject but are hard to distinguish).

I haven't found any policies that suggest these ideas. Currently I'm dealing with swapping out images for better, simpler ones, but occasionally run into someone who wants to keep their favorite photos on display. A policy would be nice to support my changes. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 02:24, 12 November 2023 (UTC)


 * All that immediately comes to mind is having accessibility via CSS to increase font size and contrast and to use SVG where appropriate, so it can be infinitely magnified with no loss of clarity. It would probably be nice if we had collections of user scripts that enhance visibility... ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:28, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Tool/Gadget for checking accessibility?
I'm curious if there is a Wikipedia-specific tool/gadget people can use to check a page's accessibility. I know other communities have specific tools/gadgets to make their jobs easier. For example, Did You Know...? (DYK), has something that with a single click analyzes the page for various factors to help determine eligibility for DYK. There's also the Edward Betts 'tool' for finding links to articles (often used to help orphaned articles) or |Copyvio check I'm wondering if there's something similar so users can quickly check the accessibility of a page and learn how to fix it, kind of like the "Check accessibility" feature in Microsoft Word. Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 20:44, 22 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I had the same question. I looked at https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey9/?hss_channel=tw-2382446636 and picked VoiceOver, as it was readily available to me.  YMMV. RudolfoMD (talk) 09:07, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Way to specify alt text for something other than an image (e.g. math)?
I came up with a great way to convey that a drug has a critical FDA-mandated black-box warning: the word "Warning" in a black box. See User:RudolfoMD/sandbox2. Great for sighted folks, that is. Is there a way to specify alt text for the math tag to be used or otherwise make the warning more accessible? Didn't find anything at Help:Displaying a formula; could use some guidance. I want to add this to so it appears in the infobox of hundreds of articles. T.I.A. RudolfoMD (talk) 09:18, 30 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Math has hidden MathML, which most screenreaders can handle and read out. And they will do that for this too. Please do not use math for decoration purposes. Just write a template with CSS styling. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 10:21, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. No clue how to do that (CSS styling), but I could try to figure it out or seek help.  It was interesting to look at the source though, and gave me another idea.
 * The source that displays the math (in my browser) at its core is just an image with alt text. We could use the image and improve the alt text. Like .... I can do that.  Seem reasonable?
 * (Also interesting that the image is an SVG containing alt text:
 * I wonder if good internal alt text makes separate alt text unnecessary; I presume that's the idea. edit: Nah. Alt probably better for lynx. )
 * -R
 * RudolfoMD (talk) 19:25, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Figured out the CSS, I think. (Couldn't figure out the image method; wouldn't render right.)  Edited Template:Drugboxwarns to use CSS.
 * Thus:  WARNING.
 * RudolfoMD (talk) 06:50, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thus:  WARNING.
 * RudolfoMD (talk) 06:50, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
 * RudolfoMD (talk) 06:50, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Skip to talk and accessibility
Hello,

I always assumed the Template:Skip to talk was primarily for accessibility allowing screen readers to skip past heading content, however when I read the template page, no mention is made of accessibility, so I may very well be under false impressions. Not urgent, but clarification as to its role in accessibility might help the template page.  // Timothy :: talk  05:30, 10 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure it's related to accessibility. I think it's just to skip long talk page preambles... like on this page. I get tired of scrolling down to get to the table of contents.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀  06:17, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Query re articles tagged with WikiProject Accessibility template
I noticed that there's a ton of articles tagged with this project's template. Considering this project deals with the accessibility of Wikipedia as a whole rather than improving disability related articles, I was wondering what the best thing to do about it is. KaraLG84 (talk) 00:35, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * This project was created in October 2007, long before the creation of WikiProject Disability in 2010, so the fact that we have articles under our scope is basically a historical artifact (ditto with the concept of this WikiProject, to be honest). To cut a long story short, the people who created this project were quite ambitious and are no longer here ... and I wasn't and am still not quite so keen but I'm still around. :-) WikiProjects as an institution are generally not doing too well these days; a cleanup could be done but I don't have a strong opinion on it. Graham87 (talk) 04:49, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Line-Height in Mobile Wikipedia
I can't use Vector Wikipedia due to migraines, and redirect to Mobile Wikipedia.

I also switch fonts and increase font sizes due to eye strain. Now Mobile Wikipedia limits many lines to 24 px to 27 px. Which can be awfully cramped. I think Mobile Wikipedia should either revert the change or use a multiple of the users' specified font size. 173.66.17.86 (talk) 02:27, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
 * This is being discussed at Village pump (technical). I'll copy your comment over there and any other comments should be made there. Graham87 (talk) 07:35, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Accessibility cleanup tags
Looking thru Category:Cleanup templates, I don't see any tags specifically calling out accessibility issues. I'm thinking that we could have a couple to flag issues with articles like "This article may not have sufficient color contrast" or "This article uses tables lacking semantic data (captions and scopes)" or "This article uses tables with column headers". This could be useful for users who don't feel confident directly editing complex tables without messing them up or who may not be able to figure out appropriate color contrast themselves. Do others think that a few tags like this would be handy? If so, which other kinds of tags could/should we have? Thanks. ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:03, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * We have . -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 22:58, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I have a similar question. I've been unable to find any tags regarding animations. I also tried video. Is there a page which lists all the templates relevant to accessibility? Even a general template called "accessibility (see talk page)" would do. I really want something to attract attention, other than a talk page topic.
 * Humpster (talk) 01:36, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Template:Accessibility dispute Moxy 🍁 01:39, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Proposed tracking for images without alt text
There is a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Linter which may be of interest to users here. The idea is track use of images without alt text, and then to surface adding alt text as a suggested "microtask" in the Wikipedia mobile app. the wub "?!"  11:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Is there a preference from an accessibility standpoint for ellipses (...) style?
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style as to changing Wikipedia's style to change from ... (three dots) with … (Unicode ellipsis, U+2026). Please contribute there to help with that discussion. Thank you. SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 23:01, 21 May 2024 (UTC)


 * thank you for raising this here. Are there other forums from which we could elicit feedback? Tonymetz  💬  16:37, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Infobox colors for good/neutral/bad
I've started a discussion that could use input from MOS:COLOR understanders at

Jruderman (talk) 12:52, 20 July 2024 (UTC)


 * List of Indian states and union territories by Human Development Index needs a better "medium" color, too. Jruderman (talk) 21:59, 20 July 2024 (UTC)