Web Accessibility

Website accessibility refers to making sure all websites are usable by all people, regardless of the location they’re in, the device they use, or whether they rely on assistive technology or not. Most commonly when people talk about “web accessibility,” they’re referring to building websites in such a way that users with disabilities such as blindness, deafness, or motor disabilities can still use them.

The web can be an empowering tool that can help democratize society, break down barriers, and provide equal access to information and resources to all people, yet, sadly, it often isn’t. Many of the websites on the internet are remarkably inaccessible to people that rely on screen readers, keyboard-only access, and more. Really, the state of the web for users with disabilities is dismal: according to a study performed in 2021, over 97% of websites in the “top one million websites” have accessibility failures. That’s awful!

For the past six years, Lieder Digital has worked hard to provide the crucial—and uncommon—service of website accessibility auditing, consulting, and remediation.

Most website owners have no idea that web accessibility is even an issue. They wouldn’t know where to go to find out how accessible their website is (or isn’t), or what to do about it if they have problems. We aim to fix that.

First of all, the most important thing to know is that simply adding a widget or overlay that puts a little wheelchair icon on your web pages does not work. No matter what those companies promise you in their advertising, spending $49/mo on a web accessibility overlay does not solve your accessibility problems. It can sometimes even make them worse. We don’t recommend it, and we won’t. Our company is even a signatory of a statement that publicly asserts the following:

No overlay product on the market can cause a website to become fully compliant with any existing accessibility standard and therefore cannot eliminate legal risk.

So what is the solution? There are only two ways to ensure that a website is fully accessible:

#1: Build it right the first time, from the ground-up.

This is, obviously, the most cost-effective and the “best” way to do it. That’s how this very website you’re reading now was designed. It’s completely accessible because we designed and built it that way from day one, with accessibility in mind every step of the way.

However, there are many websites out there that have been built and improved and modified many, many times over the years and they’ve become big, complicated properties mishmashed together with lots of technologies, add-ons, and integrations, and they’ve built up a certain level of detritus and complexity that would be almost impossible to replicate by starting over. So that brings us to the only other option.

#2: Perform an audit to identify the accessibility issues, then remediate (fix) them.

Really, it’s that simple. Either you do it right, or you go back in and fix it.

If you need a new website built that has accessibility baked-in from day one, Lieder Digital is proud to be able to help you with this. Alternately, if you have a website built that is not accessible, we can perform an audit, provide you with a detailed report, and then remediate the website so it then adheres to the success criteria as outlined in the W3C’s WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Web accessibility services we provide:

• WCAG 2.0/WCAG 2.1 evaluation and reporting
• Section 508 evaluation and reporting
• VPATs (Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates)
• Web Accessibility Training
• Web Accessibility Consulting