It’s incredible the widespread lack of knowledge and shortage of skilled professionals in the field of accessibility. I was lucky enough to enter this world almost by force for a specific project 15 years ago, and since then, I’ve loved it. Not just for the challenge of solving all the accessibility details, all the techniques, and the methodology involved, but for the idea behind all that enormous work involved in making a website, SaaS, or App accessible. That idea is nothing less than making the internet universal for everyone, regardless of their particularities, limitations, or abilities. I find it noble, fair, and necessary.

However, for some reason I don’t understand, most of the companies and professionals I know, from developers to tech leaders and C-level executives, believe that making a website accessible means running a couple of programs (usually Wave and Axe), creating some scripts to automate tests, and fixing what the tools find.

The problem arises when a client’s requirement comes in, asking them to make the necessary changes to make their website, SaaS, or App comply with W3C guidelines. Not having a clear understanding (or assuming they do) of what an accessibility analysis entails, they think it will be a couple of weeks’ work or a month at worst. After all, how complicated can it be to perform a code analysis and make corrections that only affect the front-end? Plus, now we have the help of AIs, right? So they budget a month of work for one or two developers and expect everything to run smoothly… A huge mistake. The first thing that will happen is that they will crash into the reality of performing an accessibility analysis.

The Reality of Conducting an Accessibility Analysis

1. Automated tools only detect 20-30% of accessibility failures.
2. Creating scripts for automated tests will only detect basic failures.
3. You need someone with experience in digital accessibility analysis with deep knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and, above all, the technical guidelines and methodologies recommended by the W3C. And if they also have a WAS certification, even better.
4. It’s not enough to train a couple of people for a few weeks to find flaws. If you want a large project, like a website or a SaaS with 50-150 screens, to be done well and faster, it’s important to hire more than one accessibility specialist. Instead of having 10 people who don’t know the intricacies of accessibility, it’s preferable to have 2-3 accessibility experts who can find all the flaws and recommend the necessary changes.
5. Performing an accessibility analysis is something that takes a lot of time if you want to do it well, especially if it’s being done to obtain certification from an entity or to comply with legislation like EN 301 549 or Section 508. It’s not enough to randomly point out problems and solve them in the best possible way; for it to be legally valid, you need to follow a well-established methodology, clear steps, and techniques defined on w3.org and in the legislation.
6. A lot of common sense and empathy are needed when performing tests and QA for changes. Ideally, the person could have a background in UX, Psychology, or CX.
7. In an ideal world, the final and definitive test would be user testing with individuals who have different levels and types of disabilities, or at least the most common ones. This is almost never (not to say never) done due to cost in terms of time, resources, and money.
8. There are many types of disabilities that affect people’s ability to see, hear, speak, move, think, and feel. Therefore, an accessibility analysis is not solely about ensuring that background and text colors have sufficient contrast or that text can be enlarged. There are many factors to consider when making a website or system accessible to everyone. For example, what does someone using a screen reader hear? Is the descriptive text for this image too long; in fact, is this alt text even necessary, or is the paragraph text already descriptive enough? Am I cognitively overloading the user if I incorrectly place the wrong label, causing the screen reader to provide more information than necessary?
9. For now, and until further notice, it’s a serious mistake to use AI to correct or propose solutions to accessibility problems. AI (until one specifically trained for it and working without errors emerges) takes all the information it has available—which is not always up-to-date, not always from reliable sources, and not always recommended by the W3C—and provides solutions that may or may not be correct. If we add to this the possibility that it might hallucinate at some point, then that analysis will be invalidated at the first review by any knowledgeable body.

Conclusions

Before budgeting time and costs for an accessibility analysis, it’s necessary to consult with an accessibility expert. They can assess the scope of the work, the number of screens, the complexity of the code, and analyze the challenges presented by the website, SaaS, or App. This will ultimately be much more economical in terms of time and money in the long run. It’s better to pay for a day or two of expert consultation than to provide a budget and timeline that later prove unrealistic, forcing changes to the client’s original quote and schedule. I’ve been on projects where the analysis and correction of a website were budgeted for 3 weeks (in the most unrealistic cases, they think it could be done in a week or a couple of days) and where they eventually realized—after hiring me, performing, and presenting them with the analysis of what they wanted to do—that it would take at least 3 to 4 months to make the site accessible. If they also wanted it to be bulletproof for audits and governmental entity tests, that time could extend up to a year.

Ultimately, in these cases, stakeholders decide to do the best possible within the client’s budget or by increasing the initial time and budget as little as possible. This usually results in an accessible website or SaaS that will very likely not pass the examination of a regulatory body.

It will always be more expensive not to hire specialized professionals than to hire them from the start. No matter how simple an accessibility analysis may seem at first glance, it’s truly something that only an experienced professional can do well. Doing the opposite—like trying to train your team in accessibility overnight—is like thinking that by watching a video or taking a 20-hour course on how to fix cars, you’re suddenly a professional mechanic capable of fixing any problem in any type of car.