Accessibility Overlays May Not Make Your Site More Accessible
There’s no shortcut to truly accessible design.
Tammy Xu
April 29, 2021
Tammy Xu
April 29, 2021
For a long time, accessibility has been pretty far down on most web developers’ priority lists. But that negligence is starting to haunt website owners as the number of lawsuits over web accessibility grows.
There were 57 digital accessibility lawsuits in 2015, but in 2020 that number had risen to 3,550. The trend has led to mixed results for users. On one hand, it’s focused some welcome attention on web accessibility, forcing companies to think about the consequences of ignoring accessibility concerns. But an unfortunate side effect is companies turning to third-party products called “overlays” as quick fixes to avoid being sued.
Overlays Don’t Protect Against Web Accessibility Lawsuits
Overlays are software products that can be easily added to existing websites. They detect and attempt to correct accessibility issues by “overlaying” additional code on the webpage. Companies market their products as easy-to-implement accessibility solutions that achieve compliance, in some cases even promising protection from litigation.
But accessibility advocates say overlays are not acceptable substitutes for developing accessible [...]