Using the Accessibility Menu

Liferay DXP 2024.Q2+/Portal GA120+

Most enhancements to accessibility in Liferay are propagated across the entire platform by default, so all your users can benefit from accessibility improvements. However, certain behaviors are better decided by the individual browsing the site. Beginning in Liferay DXP 2024.Q2/Portal GA120, these settings are available in the accessibility menu.

When you enable the accessibility menu, the site’s users can customize their experience with these settings:

Setting	When enabled…
Underlined Links	Force an underline effect for all links to increase their visibility.
Increased Text Spacing	Increase horizontal spacing between text characters.
Expanded Text	Expand all truncated text.
Reduced Motion	Stop all motion and animations.
Focus Ring Animation	Add an expanding animation when focus moves to a new element.
Persistent Notifications	Keep notifications open until they are dismissed.
High Contrast	Increase the contrast of colors in the interface.

You can enable the accessibility menu at the site or instance scope. If you have a self-hosted Liferay, you can also enable it at the system scope.

To enable the menu at the site scope, open the Site Menu () → Configuration → Site Settings.

To enable the menu at the instance scope, open the Global Menu () → Control Panel → Instance Settings.
Find the Accessibility entry and click Enable Accessibility Menu.
Click Save or Update.

Once enabled, refresh the browser window and hit the Tab key twice. The option for opening the accessibility menu appears.
Hit Enter to open the menu.
Alternatively, open the user menu and click Accessibility Menu.
Toggle the desired options and close the window (click the X or press Esc) when finished.

You can use Tab (forward navigation through UI elements) or Shift+Tab (for backwards navigation) to return to the menu. You may have to repeat the keystrokes several times depending on where your context is when you begin searching for the accessibility menu.

Settings Reference

Guest users’ accessibility menu selections are stored locally if they accepted functional cookies in the site. Authenticated users’ settings are persisted in the database. If a user’s settings have not been saved in the database, local storage is checked before falling back to the default values.

Underlined Links: Force an underline effect to increase the visibility of links.

Increased Text Spacing: Increase horizontal spacing between text characters to increase readability.

Expanded Text: Expand all truncated text to show complete messages by default.

Reduced Motion: Stop all motion and animations to hide transitions and other movement effects.

Liferay DXP 2026.Q3+

Focus Ring Animation: Animate the focus ring, the highlight that outlines whichever element you’ve moved to with the Tab key. As focus reaches each new element, the ring appears at a larger size and then contracts to its normal size, drawing your eye to the new element. The ring animates again when you switch back to the browser tab, so you can see where you left off. If you also enable Reduced Motion, the focus ring appears without the animation.

Liferay DXP 2026.Q4+

Persistent Notifications: Keep pop-up notifications, such as save confirmations, open until you close them by clicking the X. By default, this setting is off, and notifications close after a few seconds. This setting takes effect immediately, including for notifications already displayed.

Liferay DXP 2026.Q4+

High Contrast: Increase interface color contrast immediately, without reloading the page. The high-contrast palette matches the interface mode, with a light palette in light mode and a dark palette in dark mode. Disabling High Contrast restores the default colors. If your operating system requests more contrast, the administration interface keeps the high-contrast palette even with the toggle off.

High Contrast restyles the administration interface, including the Control Panel. A site page’s colors come from its theme: on sites using the Classic theme, guests see no change except in empty-state illustrations, and signed-in users also see Liferay controls, such as the Control Menu, restyled.