I've just came across a great reel of Michalina Ignaciuk on Instagram showing accessibility features on the website of ZARA (www.zara.com/pl). Thank you Michalina for brining attention to this example of accessibility.

In the beginning I got quite excited to see all the possible features and then I saw the list of different identity characteristics, a sort of a short cut for what one may need based on their needs.

There are 3 things that I find disturbing and actually not-inclusive about it:

1️⃣ Language

Using the words like "disorder", "blindness", "epilepsy" doesn't sound inclusive, it sounds stigmatising. The vocabulary seems to be a direct translation but in Polish inclusive language these would be rather replaced.

2️⃣ Identify characteristics

In my opinion the accessibility mode could have been approached from the feature perspective, not identity characteristic perspective. Below the "identity menu" there are many different features available and I think leaving it at that would be much more inclusive.

3️⃣ Reinforcing stereotypes

Using the identity characteristic, it's reinforcing stereotypes that all e.g. people with ADHD have the same needs for adjustments. In my opinion, it would have been better to provide the accessibility features and let users decide based on their individual needs, what features they want to use.

Or even better: why not to provide websites based on universal design where all this side complex menu is not necessary because the main version of the website is inclusive and accessible (by right contrast, font size, alt text, headline/paragrapgh etc)?

I'm not an accessibility expert so there might be even more problematic aspects of this.

To me this solution is an example of accessibility without inclusivity.