Our specialized accessibility consultancy and accessibility testing team at BarrierBreak not only ensures your business is transitioned smoothly into accessibility but also makes sure all your digital products and services meet the accessibility standards and guidelines such as WCAG, Section 508, ADA.

Nitty-Gritty of Accessibility

To achieve accessibility, build accessibility into your business development process right from the start. Demonstrate how products do not meet accessibility standards and provide useful, actionable and achievable guidelines for ways to seize opportunities, such as new ways to involve the customer base of people with disabilities in the development and design process to solve the problem.

Create an access plan to an existing strategic business cycle, publish the policies on your public viewing website, and update the policies regularly. It is always advisable to integrate accessibility in your business at the beginning.

Creating a barrier-free working environment for workers with disabilities is easier if organizations have a clear understanding of the legal requirements they must comply with. Companies covered by ADA are required to change their business policies and procedures as necessary to serve customers with disabilities and take steps to communicate with them. The rules underlying ADA require companies not to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with employee disabilities. We have explained more about ADA and digital accessibility in this article. Keep reading!

The Offline World of Accessibility

The ADA requires that new public accommodation facilities, including small businesses, must be accessible and usable for people with disabilities. Businesses have been required to remove architectural barriers to building since the passage of the 1990 American with Disabilities Act, but this process can be difficult for small businesses with limited budgets. The ADA requires companies to remove all architectural barriers from existing buildings and ensure that all newly built or modified facilities are accessible for people with disabilities.

Assessing whether your business has architectural barriers is very crucial!

Accessibility Documentation is the evidence that supports your case when your company needs to defend itself against violations of ADA regulations or lawsuits. It is best for your company to document the steps it has taken to address accessibility issues; however, minor they may seem.

The Online World of Accessibility

The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) outlines rules and guidelines for businesses to allow people with disabilities access, but it can be overwhelming for business owners to read through the long list of requirements.

ADA strikes a careful balance between improving access for people with disabilities and recognizing the financial constraints faced by many small businesses.

The fear of lawsuits and financial risks are not the only reasons why it’s a great idea for your website to adhere to ADA compliance standards. Ethically and financially, it becomes all the more important to address to the needs of your customers. By complying to ADA, it allows you to meet the requirements of the federal and state governments and open your business to a larger clientele. By adhering to these standards, you will not only create a better user experience for your users but also inadvertently increase your profitability and overall company success.

In addition to ADA, AODA policy requires companies and government agencies to adopt an outward-looking, publicly accessible policy, such as achieving a declaration on accessibility and an organizational commitment to timely accessibility.

Why BarrierBreak?

BarrierBreak’s accessibility team assist organizations to recognize that accessibility needs to come at the start, and not be an afterthought. As an accessibility vendor, we help you build accessibility features and support you in integrating accessibility in all your business processes. We make sure the user experience is seamless especially for people with disabilities.

Write to sales@barrierbreak.com to help us support you with accessibility.

The post Building Accessibility Compliance into your Business Processes appeared first on Leader in Offshore Accessibility Testing | Section 508 Compliance | WCAG Conformance | BarrierBreak.

Section 508 standard of the Rehabilitation Act 1973 requires all electronic and information technology developed, procured, maintained, or used by the federal government to be accessible to people with disabilities. The Section 508 accessibility standard applies to electronic and information technology procured by the federal government. 

Section 508 compliance does not apply to federal agencies alone but also private companies, financial industries, healthcare, legal, or any other organization that does business with a federal agency. 

Ensure Government opportunities by creating accurate VPAT for your digital products. VPAT indicates a product’s compliance with Section 508 standards. Check out this blog on What is a VPAT? Should I create a VPAT for my product?

BarrierBreak’s Section 508 testing team assists your organization to ensure that your digital solutions adhere to Section 508 accessibility standards. 

The Scope 

Section 508, drafted in 1986 as an amendment to the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, was intended to address the needs of disabled workers in the field of electronic information technology at work. It replaced the federal Electronic Information Technology Accessibility and Compliance Act in 1998, which required that all electronic IT products and services provided by Federal agencies be accessible to people with disabilities.

An update of the law which took effect in 2018 aims to align American standards with international accessibility efforts such as the WCAG (Web Content Access Guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium). The original scope of Section 508 was to make federal information available and accessible to users with disabilities.  

Section 508 Refresh 

On January 9, 2017, the Access Board issued a definitive rule updating the accessibility requirements under Section 508 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act known as “Section 508 Refresh”. The Section 508 refresh was to ensure that the information and communication technologies (ICTs) covered by the Act are accessible to people with disabilities.

The Social Security Administration has undertaken to make all its electronic information technologies accessible to disabled people by meeting or exceeding requirements of Section 508. The agency is committed to the comprehensive approach to compliance with 508 to ensure that people with disabilities have access comparable to those without disabilities, and its commitment to accessibility includes the content and online services offered on this website. 

If someone with a disability is unable to access a federal agency website, including federal employees with disabilities, Section 508 requires the federal government to provide a means of access. If your website does not comply with the requirements set out in Section 504, you may be subject to legal action or a fine.  

BarrierBreak is aware that compliance with Section 508 and related refurbishment of Section 504 is based on testing standards, not a specific set of accessibility tests. The team has worked closely with customers across the globe to implement evaluation procedures that take into account 508 standards, the W3C Digital Accessibility Guidelines and other applicable, policies, and independent development platforms and testing tools. 

Section 508 Compliance Testing Checklist 

There are some attributes and functions one should check when testing a website for Section 508 compliance. They are as follows: 

• Using Alt-Text for every photo, video, logo and non-text element. These are critical because people with visual impairments or low vision can understand and know what’s contained in them. They may be using Assistive Technology like Jaws Screen Reader to read the text on the website. 
• There should be sufficient contrast between the background color and information on the webpage. This helps people with low vision read the information on the page. 
• Filling out forms shouldn’t be restricted to only mouse. People with disabilities, especially those with motor disabilities should be able to fill such forms using Assistive technology or their keyboards. 
• People using Assistive Technology should be able to skip the long list of navigation and sitelinks and jump straight to the content or page they want to read. 

Our highly experienced team of accessibility testers not only assist in making your website and other ICT solutions accessible and easily navigable but also makes sure it is ADA and Section 508 compliant. 

Write to sales@barrierbreak.com and reach out for further assistance. 

The post Section 508 Compliance Testing appeared first on Leader in Offshore Accessibility Testing | Section 508 Compliance | WCAG Conformance | BarrierBreak.

Recently, we were contacted by a company that was looking to create accessibility overlays for their website. We have been meaning to do a blog post about what accessibility overlays are, so we decided to take this opportunity to dive into the topic a little deeper.

We are seeing a digital transformation due to the pandemic and organizations are recognizing the need to provide an inclusive user experience to their customers. In addition, ADA-related lawsuits have increased by 23% in 2020. Though this has focused much-needed attention on digital accessibility, many organizations are also seeking quick fixes such as accessibility overlays to avoid accessibility lawsuits.

What are Accessibility Overlays?

Accessibility overlays and tools are automated software solutions that claim to detect and solve accessibility problems on the web. Accessibility Overlay tools typically apply JavaScript codes to make improvements to the front-end code of the website and quickly fix accessibility issues. There are various types of accessibility overlays with tool-based options such as toolbars, plugins, JavaScript and hardware models.

What do Accessibility Overlays offer?

If you want to make your digital solutions accessible online, accessibility overlays and widgets are one of the possibilities you’ll encounter along the way. Their goal is to make the websites accessible without having to change the source code underlying, ensuring accessibility in a fraction of the time and cost.

In the market for a quick fix, accessibility providers promise that accessibility overlays can make the necessary repairs to your website, help you resolve WCAG conformance issues in seconds, and do so at a fraction of the cost of other accessibility solutions.

Disadvantages of Accessibility Overlays

• 70-80% of the problems are not detected by the overlay. Overlays do not address accessibility problems in the source code, which means that people with disabilities are unable to navigate a website and access information at the same level.
• Issues such as unlabeled buttons and fields are not addressed, as are keyboard navigation, images, alt-text and other common accessibility issues.
• The problem is that while overlays can make websites more responsive to include accessibility tools, they can also make pages too rigid to be adaptable and override user preferences.
• There are also legal risks when an overlay creates a barrier for people with a disability in their experience with the site.
• Some users find overlays disruptive to their own access tools and they have manipulated their browsers to block overlays.

“Personally, I wouldn’t put an overlay on BarrierBreak’s website, so why would I advise customers to use overlays. If your organization focuses on inclusion, then Overlays are not the answer. Invest in Accessibility by building accessible products and solutions not by using a quick fix that can break at any time.”  Shilpi Kapoor, CEO at BarrierBreak

Why do we not advocate or recommend Accessibility Overlays?

• As per the WebAIM Survey of Web Accessibility Practitioners on accessibility overlays – 67% of respondents rate these tools as not at all or not very effective. Respondents with disabilities were even less favorable with 72% rating them not at all or not very effective, and only 2.4% rating them as very effective.
• Most providers that offer accessibility overlay widgets are solutions that combine aspects of overlay widgets to create their end product. Apart from the obvious problem of non-compliance with ADA regulations and the resulting lawsuits, accessibility overlays fall apart in many ways.
• Even the National Federation of the Blind has revoked accessiBe’s sponsorship saying that National Convention Sponsorship Statement Regarding accessiBe wherein they state “the Board believes that accessiBe currently engages in behavior that is harmful to the advancement of blind people in society. In particular, it is the opinion of the Board that accessiBe peremptorily and scornfully dismisses the concerns blind people have about its products and its approach to accessibility.”

There is no shortcut to an accessible design! Providers whose sole purpose is to ensure the accessibility of the website and to avoid lawsuits for overlays do not have a good track record in bringing lawsuits.

Get in touch for a 30 min tête-à-tête focused discussion on accessibility and personalized advice to forward your organization’s accessibility journey.

The post Why should you stay away from Accessibility Overlays? appeared first on Leader in Offshore Accessibility Testing | Section 508 Compliance | WCAG Conformance | BarrierBreak.