Their old browser was not their fault, but my failure to know they were using it was very much mine.įor most of us, analytics create the blueprint for our work: we use visitor data to determine where to focus our attention, how to present information, and which audiences merit our time. Ignoring the insights residing within analytics can jeopardize a project I learned this the hard way when I sat down to demo a client’s shiny new site on their office computers and discovered that their corporate network was still hard-wired to the dreaded Internet Explorer 8.

We can spend hours digging into fascinating insights on everything from shopping cart abandonment to social media conversions to browser use. Analyticsĭesigners and developers live for analytics data. When these aspects are taken into consideration, screen reader detection emerges as a technique whichĬarries serious technical, ethical and privacy risks.

It’s an issue that pits accessibility against privacy, with legal complications thrown in for fun. This article explores both sides of a longstanding debate: should screen readers be detectable in analytics?

Screen readers for visually impaired