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Website Slammed for Not Allowing Users To Send Emails if They’re Colorblind

Someone in America who tried sending an email to their township (district/council) was unable to, because the anti-spam measures used on the site was not accessible to colour-blind people.

It showed a little square box filled with a green colour, and asked the user to select the right colour from a dropdown list. As RealLaurenBoebert wrote: “If you wanted to intentionally design a captcha that would let bots through, and keep colorblind people out, it would look exactly like this.”

The name of the township is not mentioned, nor is there a link to the web page that contains (or contained) the issue. I imagine the measure would also have been impossible for screen reader users to pass. Let’s hope it’s been replaced with an accessible alternative now.

This story highlights the risks of rolling out your own anti-spam measures, which require careful consideration to be accessible.

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