How To Optimize Your Website For People With Disabilities

In recent years, our corporate cultures and many governments across the globe have adopted regulations, policies and practices to meet the needs of people of all backgrounds, especially those with disabilities. Since the world wide web is meant to be accessed by everyone, it is important that businesses make sure that their digital services are just as accessible as their brick and mortar shops.

Not only is it the right thing to do, it’s also the law. In 2018, the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group upgraded the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to 2.1. It outlines a multitude of recommendations and specifications to make your website PWD-friendly (PWD – people with disabilities), and is the globally accepted set of standards for website accessibility. Most national pieces of accessibility/disability legislation use WCAG as their benchmark.

But how do you go about accommodating those customers, stay in check with disability legislation and earn a positive brand perception? Is there a way to do so affordably and without hiring an expensive web developer to completely redesign your current site?

The answer is yes! accessiBe is a service that ensures your website is able to accommodate the needs of all customers with a wide array of disabilities. Now you can quickly, easily, and affordably offer your products and services to the broadest possible audience of web users AND avoid run ins with the law.

What is accessiBe?

accessiBe is the first and only AI-powered solution that is revolutionizing the industry by making web accessibility simple, automatic, immediate and affordable. Most of all, it ensures that you are always in compliance with the latest editions of WCAG 2.1, AODA, ADA, Section 508 and other worldwide legislations.

accessiBe was developed alongside people with disabilities, including blind individuals who are leading experts in assistive technologies. One of them is a lead developer of JAWS, the most popular and advanced screen-reader in the world. For this reason, accessiBe is compatible with both JAWS and another popular screen reader, NVDA.

The front-end interface allows users to make specific, comprehensive, and immediate modifications to a webpage’s display and functionality.

These include, but are not limited to changes in font size, type and spacing, color scheme and the ability to disable all animations or audio with the click of a button. There are also options to change cursor color and sizing, magnify text, enable a virtual keyboard and much more.

The Advantages of accessiBe

Trusted and used by over 1,500 industry leading companies 

accessiBe automatically scans, analyzes, and solves accessibility compliance gaps in up to 48 hours. Its interface presents a toolset for people with disabilities to apply session-based adjustments as an overlay to your website, according to their needs, and without interfering with your code base, loading times, UI or design.

After the initial 48 hours, accessiBe will re-scan and re-analyze your website every 24 hours to ensure that any new content, widgets, or pages are adapted and compliant with the WCAG 2.1, AODA and ADA standards. 

The service even issues you a formal statement of accessibility and certification of performance that can be easily presented on your site. Coupled with monthly compliance audits, you can be certain that your website is optimized for all members of the public. 

How accessiBe Works

The process of becoming compliant is only 5 simple steps

1. Install a single line of JavaScript code.  
2. Your website instantly displays the accessibility interface.  
3. The AI starts scanning and analyzing your website.  
4. In 48 hours, the AI is finished, and your website is compliant.  
5. The AI re-scans for new and revised content to process every 24 hours.  

Additionally, the AI has the power to generate accurate descriptions of a website’s images and embed them in the form of alternate text tags, which are crucial to those who rely on the use of screen readers.

Get Accessible Now With accessiBe

The use of artificial intelligence technology makes accessiBe a fully automated service, thereby dramatically cutting the costs of becoming WCAG 2.1, ADA, and AODA compliant.

accessiBe is only $490 per year per domain for websites under 1,000 pages. This is a small price to pay when considering the time, effort, and money you would have to spend by hiring a web developer who specializes in website accessibility legislation. Investing in accessiBe would save you the headache of a potential disability lawsuit that could rack up thousands in fines and legal fees. 

Disability Inclusion Coach, Trish Robichaud recommends accessiBe to all clients that have a digital presence. Robichaud affirms that, “accessiBe is the first web accessibility solution on the planet to use artificial intelligence to modify inaccessible web coding on the fly! They’ve finally made web accessibility affordable for any business that wants to expand their client base to include people with disabilities.”

Unsure if your website is optimized for visitors of all abilities? Click here to test it for full accessibility yourself (don’t worry, it’s free!).