WhiteHouse.gov, the official website for all presidential actions and efforts, is among the first things to change under the newly inaugurated President Biden. A trendy dark mode has appeared, as well as a large text button for fatigued eyes, and the webmaster is committed to making the entire site compliant with the latest accessibility guidelines.
The look isn't much different from the previous administration site - they're both fairly modern and minimal experiences, with large featured photos and sorted lists of priorities and announcements once you delve into a category.
But one big design change implemented by the new administration that many will appreciate is the inclusion of a dark mode, or high contrast mode, and a large type switch.
Dark modalities have always existed, but they have become de rigeur when Apple rolled out their own system-wide versions on iOS and macOS some time ago. It's just easier on the eyes in a lot of ways, and it's nice to give users options either way.
WhiteHouse.gov's dark mode changes the title type from a patriotic blue to an eye-friendly off-white, with links to soothing Dijon. The White House logo also changes from a dark blue background to a solid black with a white border. It's all very tasty, and if anything looks like a Bass- contrast mode, not high.
The large font mode does what it says, making everything noticeably larger and easier to tap or click. The sticks, it must be said, are a little too prominent, but they will probably change that soon.
There is also a Spanish language option, no doubt welcomed by the millions of Americans whose first language it is. This was not present on the previous page of the White House / Casa Blanca.
The commitment in the accessibility section is more forward-looking:
This commitment to accessibility for all begins with this site and our efforts to ensure that all features and content are accessible to all Americans.
Our ongoing commitment to accessibility works to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1, AA level criteria.
The WCAG guidelines are a set of best practices for designing a website so that its content can be easily accessed by people who use screen readers, need captions for audio, or can't easily use a mouse or a touchscreen. The guidelines are not particularly difficult to meet, but as many have pointed out, it is more difficult to adapt a website to be accessible than to design it for accessibility from the start. Government sites must be accessible, but have different levels of compliance.
One thing I've noticed is that many of the photos on the White House website have alt text or visible captions attached - these help blind visitors understand what's in an image. Here is an example:
Normally that alt text is read by a screen reader when it arrives at the image, but it is generally not made visible.
Unless the metadata was removed from the previous administration site (it's archived here), none of the photos I checked had text descriptions there, so that's a big improvement. Unfortunately some photos (like the large header photo on the front page) don't have descriptions, which probably should be fixed.
Accessibility in other places will mean the ready inclusion of clear versions of governance elements and announcements (as opposed to PDFs or other documents), captions on official videos and other media, and as the team notes, many small improvements that make the site best for everyone who visits.
It's a small thing in a way compared to the changes that should accompany the new administration, but the little things tend to pile up and become big things.
Like Microsoft's Isaac Hepworth noticed, there is still a lot of work to be done, which is why US Digital Services has hidden a small message in the source code:
If you are interested in helping, sign up here.
