“ADA Compliance in a Can? “

Web Accessibility: Beyond Automated Solutions

In recent years, web accessibility has gained significant attention due to growing awareness of the rights of people with disabilities and legal mandates. This has led to the rise of companies offering costly automated and more recently AI-driven solutions that promise to make websites compliant with standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), ADA, or Section 508. However, these automated solutions are often ineffective and misleading. Despite their convenience, they frequently fail to deliver true accessibility and raise significant concerns about the broader implications of relying on such tools and raise ethical concerns about the way they are presented and marketed to business owners.

The Fine Print Trap: Unveiling the Deceptive Marketing of Accessibility Tools

In my experience, many business owners falsly believe that simply installing widgets or overlays will protect them from lawsuits, but this is simply the lie that that keeps being perpetuated. Not surprising when terms like ADA compliance, WCAG, and Section 508 Compliance are often used without proper context, which contributes to the confusion. For example, when I recently visited the accessiBe website, I was greeted by their automatic scanning tools with the prompt: “Find out now if your website is WCAG & ADA compliant.” If I did not know any better I might have believed compliance were that simple! Use an automated tool to scan my site know if any errors, fix them and move on with my life. Unfortunately, it is not nearly that simple as automated scan tools cannot find a majority of errors. Perhaphs becuase they didnt say something like,  Find out if your website is 100% WCAG & ADA compliant it is legally kosher, I cant say for sure I am not a lawyer, but I am sure you can see why this could be misinterpreted.  A deepeer dive in the recent terms of service of some of the companies led me to statements to indicate additional services are often required to address the many accessibility problems that these tools miss, something I alredy knew. Still, this seemed to contradicts the polished marketing language I have seen and heard years before promoting accessibility overlays and widgets alone.

I would not be the first to beleive these companies use sophisticated marketing tactics to create the illusion of their products being more capable than they are, offering an incomplete picture of what is needed and the additional costs, tools and technology involved to achieve any specific level of compliance.

Unfortunately, many business owners, guided by their web developers, do not review the terms of service of these third-party providers . Even if they did, understanding the legal language is challenging for the average person, as it is carefully crafted by savvy legal professionals.

Sadly, I have seen web companies selling widgets on the promise of ADA compliance, using fear-based tactics to emphasize the risk of legal action for non-compliance. They offer a offer a widget or overlay as a quick fix and a false sense of security. In reality, the real motivation is provide the easiest way to offer some form of compiance markup on the total project cost. The trade-off they do not mention is that these tools do not address the underlying code issues that are crucial for genuine accessibility. Instead, they provide superficial fixes that fail to resolve deeper, structural problems. These issues often stem from page builders that do not create clean code and web design companies’ reluctance to learn best practices or put in the effort required to create a site that is correctly built and iteratively tested for accessibility best practices from the start.

As a result, significant accessibility gaps remain, often leaving users with disabilities unable to fully navigate and interact with these websites. Meanwhile, business owners remain unaware that these overlays are attempting to correct accessibility problems that could be easily avoided by designing the site correctly with better tools from the start.

Let’s Look at Some Supporting Stats

The most recent 2024 study by WebAIM tested one million home pages, finding 56,791,260 distinct accessibility errors—an average of 56.8 errors per page. According to their report, sites with overlays only had a slightly better-than-average score and still had a significant amount of errors: AudioEye had 36.9 errors, UserWay had 42.9 errors, and accessiBe had 50.5 errors. Keep in mind this testing was only done using automated tools. Most recent data shows that automated tools can at best only catch 57% of accessibility issues at best. Based on those numbers that means the errors found in the WebAIM study do not include as many as an additional 43% of errors that require manual analysis to detect. Simply put, even if you receive a 100% accessibility score using an automated tool, that does not make you compliant, and you are likely still missing at least 43% or more of the errors and thats if your automatic tool is one of the better on the market. Furthermore, the results show overlays are not going to fix a large majority of WCAG accessibility issues that automated scanning tools can find not counting those that require manual testing.

The Broader Implications

Legal and Ethical Risks:

There have been numerous cases where websites using overlay and widgets were still found non-compliant with accessibility laws and regulations, leading to lawsuits and reputational damage. Ethically, providing a subpar experience for users with disabilities is counterproductive to the inclusivity goals that web accessibility aims to achieve.

Marginalizing Disabled Users:

Widgets often require users to activate them to see accessibility improvements. This puts the onus on disabled users to make the web usable for themselves, which can be disempowering and frustrating. True accessibility should be built into the core design of websites, ensuring an inclusive experience for all users from the start, without requiring additional steps or modifications.

Accessibility Overlays Can Interfere:

There are reports of accessibility overlays interfering with assistive technologies that disabled users already rely on. For instance, some screen reader users have found that overlays disrupt the normal functioning of their tools, making navigation more difficult instead of easier. This can lead to an even poorer user experience than if no accessibility efforts were made at all.

16 Reasons Your Overlay or Widget Didn’t Make You WCAG Compliant

Now, I know this section is a bit technical but I felt it was important to list some common accessibility problems that the automated tools cannot fix.

• Labelling Form Fields Accurately Overlays cannot ensure form fields have appropriate and descriptive labels that screen readers can understand, making it difficult for users to know what information is required. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 3.3.2 (Labels or Instructions
• Facilitating Magnification Without Breaking Content Ensuring that content remains readable and functional when zoomed in or out is a complex task that overlays cannot handle, often resulting in broken layouts or hidden information. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 1.4.4 (Resize Text)
• Repairing Ambiguous Link Names Overlays cannot rewrite vague link names to be more descriptive. Links that say “click here” or “read more” without context are unhelpful for users relying on screen readers. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 2.4.4 (Link Purpose (In Context))
• Writing Appropriate and Contextual Alternative Text Creating alternative text for images that accurately describes their content and context requires human judgment. Overlays cannot generate meaningful alt text for every image. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 1.1.1 (Non-text Content)
• Deciding Image Purpose and Writing Suitable Alt Text Overlays cannot determine if an image is decorative or functional and write appropriate alt text, which is crucial for users who cannot see the images. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 1.1.1 (Non-text Content)
• Remediating Focus of Control Ensuring that the sequence of elements that receive focus when navigating via keyboard is logical and intuitive is beyond the capability of overlays. Proper focus management is essential for accessibility. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 2.4.3 (Focus Order)
• Ensuring Keyboard-Only Accessibility Overlays cannot make sure all interactive elements (like buttons and forms) can be used with a keyboard alone. This is vital for users who cannot use a mouse. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 2.1.1 (Keyboard)
• Fixing Heading Structures Overlays cannot correct the order and hierarchy of headings on a webpage. Proper heading structure helps users, especially those using screen readers, understand the organization of content. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships)
• Fixing Timing Out Issues Overlays cannot manage session timeouts to ensure users have enough time to interact with the content without losing their progress, which can be frustrating and inaccessible. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 2.2.1 (Timing Adjustable)
• Stopping Autoplaying Videos Overlays cannot stop videos from automatically playing. Autoplaying videos can be distracting and problematic for users with cognitive disabilities or those using screen readers. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 2.2.2 (Pause, Stop, Hide)
• Correcting Color Contrast Issues Overlays cannot ensure there is enough contrast between text and background colors to make content readable for users with visual impairments. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 1.4.3 (Contrast (Minimum))
• Providing Comprehensive Error Messages Overlays cannot create detailed, context-specific error messages that help users understand and correct mistakes, particularly in forms. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 3.3.1 (Error Identification)
• Ensuring Consistent Navigation Overlays cannot ensure that navigation is consistent across all pages, which helps users with cognitive impairments find information more easily. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 3.2.3 (Consistent Navigation)
• Customizing User Preferences Overlays cannot remember and apply user preferences (like text size or color schemes) across different sessions, which is essential for users who need consistent accessibility settings. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 1.4.13 (Content on Hover or Focus)
• Supporting Screen Reader Compatibility Overlays cannot fully guarantee compatibility with all screen readers, which might result in incomplete or inaccurate reading of webpage content. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value)
• Handling Dynamic Content Updates Overlays cannot adequately manage dynamic content updates (like live chat windows or real-time notifications) to ensure they are accessible and do not disrupt the user’s experience. WCAG 2.1 Guideline 4.1.3 (Status Messages)

The costly way to web accessibility

Conclusion: Moving Towards Genuine Accessibility

While the convenience of automated accessibility widgets like Accessibe, Userway, and AudioEye is tempting, they are not a cure-all for web accessibility challenges. True accessibility requires a comprehensive, human-centered approach that goes beyond what AI or widgets alone can offer. Instead of relying on the unrealistic promise that overlays or widgets can make your site 100% accessible or completely mitigate legal risk, we believe it’s better to follow WCAG guidelines diligently. This helps addresses both legal and ethical concerns, ensuring that the largest majority of users, regardless of their abilities, can access and benefit from your online content. Avoid using accessibility overlays or widgets on your site, as they often provide a false sense of security and exploit fears of potential lawsuits.

Our advice to customers is to invest in both automated testing tools and manual testing throughout the development process, combined with ongoing maintenance. This comprehensive approach ensures a good faith effort to follow best practices for usability in both code and design, and an ongoing commitment to adhering to the WCAG guidelines. Achieving full compliance with every accessibility law worldwide is extremely complex, as many laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), lack clearly defined standards for proving compliance. This makes “compliance” a very gray area.

Also, It’s important to remember that WCAG guidelines are not laws. Following these guidelines is considered a best practice, and while they may be referenced in legal contexts, they do not guarantee compliance with laws such as the ADA, Section 508, or any other applicable regulations. Ultimately, if challenged only a judge can determine your legal compliance. In my opinion, shared with accessibility experts and disabled users,, accessibility overlays and widgets are not the best way to improve accessibility or mitigate your business’s legal risk—in fact, in many cases, quite the opposite is true. Also, if you are using a widget to or overlay to correct a site that wasnt designed or coded properly in the long run, if you do try to make your site more accessible in the future, you will end up paying a premium to fix those problems with fees for expert audits and extended manual remediation fees to fix all those errors, which can quickly exceed the value of your entire website.

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