Before Martin joined WTE, he asked if I could help his father. After a career on Wall Street, Martin's eighty-year-old father Duncan lived in Scottsdale and still helped a handful of clients navigate stocks, inflation, and how to beat the other forces that erode wealth, but there was a problem. Duncan had macular degeneration and could hardly see. Trying to help Duncan make his computer more accessible and setting up speech-to-text was a study in frustration for all of us.
After that experience, I wanted to ensure sites we build have accessibility built in. Still, I discovered a challenge - our customers don't always use the tools we include, and every website can't possible address any challenge a visitor might have so I went looking for a partner that could automate accessibility, and this post is about my search, our partner, and why your website should do the right thing.
Did you know the CDC says one in four Americans, or eighty-six million people, have a disability? And those eighty-six million have something in common with the other 246 million Americans – they are all online. Imagine how frustrated and angry those 86,000,000 Americans would feel when they visit a website that isn't accessible, one they can't see, hear or understand.
Extend the idea and imagine how frustrated and angry your customers would be if they visited an accessible site only to click on your inaccessible content. Of course, frustrated and angry customers do many things, but buying, advocating, and joining are rarely one of them.
Seeing the rising importance of accessibility for Google (SEO) and the need to help every American engage with our websites, we began coding in accessibility. Still, we encountered a problem - accessibility standards, guidelines, and laws change frequently and by state. Since WTE has our hands full staying ahead of the next big technology trend, we searched for and found a great accessibility partner called accesiBe. Learn more about accessiBe and how to do the right thing for your website visitors by reading on.
Website accessibility and the web accessibility initiative refers to web design and website tools and technologies to make web pages usable by people with various disabilities removing accessibility barriers and making inaccessible websites available to all. Accessible websites include people with visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive disabilities and other impairments. Website accessibility ensures that all users, regardless of their abilities, can access, understand, navigate, and interact with the content and services provided online.
Website accessibility is important for several reasons:
Inclusion Making your website accessible promotes social inclusion and equal opportunities for people with learning disabilities, visual impairments such as color blindness and Duncan’s low vision, and other disabilities. Website accessibility overcomes accessibility problems to ensure everyone can access information, services, and online communication tools fostering a more inclusive society.
Accessibility Laws In many countries, web accessibility gets mandated by laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and accessibility standards and guidelines, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0 & WCAG 2.1) or WCAG standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), or section 508 of the rehabilitation act. Failure to comply with the ADA’s title III and other laws can result in legal action, fines, and damage to your company and brand’s reputation. ADA compliance is a good idea because who wants a department of justice letter or an accessibility lawsuit? Answer: No one.
Usability Implementing accessibility principles using assistive technologies improves functionality, usability, and user experience for all website visitors. An accessible website features clear and consistent navigation, well-structured content, and user-friendly design, benefiting everyone, winning visitor hearts and minds, and converting traffic into customers.
Reach By making your website accessible, your brands and marketing reach a broader audience, including millions of people living with disabilities. Expanded reach increases customer engagement, loyalty, and revenue.
SEO Many accessibility best practices, such as using proper headings, descriptive link text, and alternative text (alt text) for images and the HTML associated with accessibility, improves search engine optimization (SEO). Accessible websites have better overall user experiences and increased user engagement. While technical SEO is essential, nothing helps your web pages rank more than visitors spending time and clicking on your call-to-action buttons.
Ethics Creating an accessible website, software, and mobile applications, is a responsible and ethical choice every website owner should embrace because equal access and digital accessibility for all is an American ideal, a civil right, an aspiration, and our promise.
Next, let's understand the WTE accessiBe partnership; when we researched accessibility applications, accessiBe won significantly. Learn why we partner with and help our customers install accessiBe.
The accessiBe application is an AI-enabled accessibility solution developed by people with disabilities and leading experts in assistive technologies that guarantees website compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG), Americans with Disabilities Act (A.D.A.), federal s508 regulations, and more. For example, here is a paragraph from the E.P.A.’s website on s508:
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. § 794d), as amended by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-220), requires federal agencies to develop, procure, maintain, and use information and communications technology (I.C.T.) that is accessible to people with disabilities - regardless of whether or not they work for the federal government. The U.S. Access Board established the Section 508 standards that implement the law and provides the requirements for accessibility.
You may not even know what those acronyms mean, and they change all the time, so working with accesiBe to ensure your website is available to every American and in full compliance is intelligent, efficient, and cheap.
A client asked how accessible their website was after a friend got caught in a lawsuit. Accessibility wasn’t on our customer’s radar until her friend received a demand letter. Thanks to our technology partnership with accessiBe, we ran a free accessibility audit on our customer’s website. Here is what the accessibility audit showed:
Website Code = SUCCESS. We build our websites with good code that allows users’ assistive technologies to see what is happening on our websites.
Menus, Tables, Image Carousels = NEUTRAL. Since code controls menus, tables, and images, assistive technologies read our code for your website. As a result, these elements generally don’t fail the accessibility test. But when AI provides additional tagging that “talks” to a disabled user’s computer or stops image rotators from moving, it could be better for the user, so you gain points with 86M Americans.
Titles = FAILURE We give clients who use our software the fields to use, but some don’t, and titles are key SEO parameters, so this failure hurts twice.
Readability = FAILURE Pages were not readily accessible due to colors not everyone could see due to being color blind, visually impaired, or having cataracts. Not using or providing the option to use large fonts is also a problem.
Clickability = FAILURE Every image, icon, table, graphic, graph, button, link, 3rd party code that does something for you, etc., needs a tag and descriptive instructions telling users things like “there is a button here that opens to a page with information about x" and "this button opens another website browser on your computer". Unfortunately, clickability, orientation, and documentation were not accessible, and without access to AI-enabled tech, fixing this issue is all but impossible.
You see the problem. We built tools to help with these issues on our customer's websites, but their content and accessibility regulations change too much to update their website manually. We like accessiBe because it has one job: ensuring your content is accessible by everyone, and it does that job brilliantly.
Remember when we said confused angry customers rarely buy, advocate, or join? Filing lawsuits is one thing disabled Americans are doing in record numbers. Last year saw a 12% increase in ADA lawsuits setting a new record.
Kris Rivenburgh, author of the ADA Books, says:
If you receive a website (or app) accessibility demand letter under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (or other anti-discrimination law) $25,000 is a conservative final tab after everything is finished.
When you drive a car insurance is one of the costs. Think of accessiBe as accessibility insurance for your website. The annual fee for the accessiBe technology and service is budget friendly, and includes two important valuable things:
If your website was developed by us using AgileSite, AgileSite Lite, or PointShop Enterprise, we built in tools to help your website be accessible. But we find that most clients don’t use the tools that can work with a visitor’s assistive technologies.
Do you put an alt title tag on every image on your website? Have you ensured your logo colors and color scheme have enough contrast to be easily seen by visitors with eyesight issues? You might answer yes, but are you 100% certain that your new intern fills out the alt text when they add a graphic or a photo?
Why live with doubt or fear when adding accessiBe’s AI enabled technology can describe what a picture on your website shows for visitors who can’t see. What about that video that may cause a seizure? The accessiBe software knows to prevent the video from playing.
Yes, we build in tools to help our customers website accessibility, but yes we also recommend accessibe because we live in a belt and suspenders world where a little accessibility insurance provides a lot of protection, peace of mind, and the ability to sleep knowing an accessibility demand letter won’t be headed your way.
The accessiBe software makes doing the right thing easy. The widget appears on the bottom of every page making your website fully accessible for people who are blind, are motor impaired, have cognitive disorders, epileptics, and those with vision and hearing impairments. The accessiBe widget provides options for content adjustments to color, display, and navigation. There is a screen reader and keyboard navigation adjustments visitors can use too.
When a law changes the accessiBe widget on your website receives the needed update without you doing a thing. And your customers use the widget to change your website based on what THEY need. When a visitor can’t see the green color in your logo that matches all your link colors, or if they can’t read anything smaller than 24 pt text, or if they can’t watch anything that moves without a seizure thanks to accessiBe your website changes on the fly ensuring accessibility and positive customer experiences.
The accessiBe software scans your website every day making adjustments so your content stays in compliance, so you don’t have to worry about your interns doing the wrong thing in the wrong way. The company provides an accessibility certificate and assistance if you receive a demand letter.
Our Support Team can run a free accessibility audit on your website to give you feedback about your successes and failures, and point out ways that the accessiBe service can help you become and stay compliant.
Get Your Free Accessibility Audit
Already know your website needs help to become more accessible? If you're ready to do the right thing, start a free trial and add the accessiBe code to your website.
Sign up for your 7 Day Free accessiBe Trial
If you're an existing WTE Solutions client with an Agilesite, AgileSite Lite, or PointShop Enterprise website solution, we'll add the accessiBe code to the website for you. Just let Support know you've signed up for the free trial and are ready for installation assistance.
If your website doesn't use one of our platforms, you can still add accessibility to your website with accessiBe by adding a small snippet of code into your website. If you don't know how to do that, send our Support Team an email or give us a call and we'll help your website become accessible by all.
Thanks,
Eric
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Eric Garrison Founder & CEO WTE Solutions
e: eg (at) wte.net p: 1 (866) 994-7467