What is Web Accessibility?
What is web accessibility? Web accessibility is a set of rules, behaviors, code standards, and design guidelines that were created by the W3C and are called the WCAG 2.1.
The WCAG 2.1 is a massive 1,000-page guidebook that encapsulates a range of disabilities that go from hindering internet use to making internet use impossible without adjustments. This spectrum actually comprises 20-25% of the general population depending on if we’re going with the CDC or WHO.
There are many disabilities covered, and the primary categories that require attention are:
- blind people using screen-readers,
- the motor-impaired using only the keyboard to navigate,
- epilepsy, color blindness,
- cognitive and learning disabilities,
- visual impairments, and more
Who Benefits From a Website Being ADA Compliant?
Everybody benefits. In recent years there has been an exponential increase in demand for web accessibility. This is a result of a greater understanding that business owners and people with disabilities have so much to mutually gain from website accessibility.
The number of ADA compliance lawsuits has increased dramatically in recent years. How dramatic, you ask? There has been a 200% increase, year over year, with reports of 10’s of thousands of demand letters and lawsuits, targeting businesses of all sizes.
A quick example of this: A visually impaired woman from Broward County, Florida sued 175 business owners. As a result of this, several of those businesses closed down as a result.
Has COVID Affected the Need for ADA Compliance?
Yes, it absolutely has. Those who were quarantined, were affected by COVID mandates or vaccine passport restrictions had less access to physical locations and amenities. Because of this they were finding more difficulty in accessing the web for essential services.
What Are The Current Options for Achieving ADA Compliance?
There are currently multiple options available for attempting to achieve ADA Compliance.
There are multiple free or low cost plugins available. However they only provide you with 10-15% of the accessibility you need in order to become compliant.
Another option are manual accessibility services that do bring you up to full compliance. But they can cost $20,000 to $40,000 per website. They can also take several weeks or months to implement. The worst part of the manual accessibility services are the tedious and costly maintenance. Imagine spending all of that time and money. Then realizing that every time you want to make a change or revision to your site, you have to either spend thousands of dollars or sacrifice a significant amount of the accessibility that you worked so hard to attain.
Those options leave 99% of businesses without a feasible solution. This makes them easy targets for lawsuits and prevents them from helping people with disabilities.
To solve this situation, accessiBe created the AI accessibility tool.
Why is accessiBe the Best Option Available?
accessiBe is an AI-powered machine-learning software. It was developed with the understanding that successfully automating the process creates a simple, immediate, affordable, and compliant solution. It serves as a win-win for the business owner and people with disabilities, who just want equal access to the internet.
The accessiBe pricing model is also a fraction of the cost of manual remediation. Their solution is a no brainer in comparison to the other alternatives in the market. It makes being accessible and compliant a no brainer in general for the majority of businesses that otherwise wouldn’t have a reasonable solution.
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