We do accessibility audits differently.
A quick Google search will show you a list of companies or automated tools that can provide you with a 50 page PDF report and 20+ CSV files with hundreds of thousands of rows listing every accessibility error on your website. This is the “result” most companies offer when they sell you an accessibility audit: a giant report of all the errors on your website that costs you thousands of dollars and gets you no closer to having an accessible website.
At Equalize Digital, we do website accessibility audits differently. Our goal is not to sell you a giant report. Our goal is to help you determine, as quickly as possible, which accessibility issues exist on your website, to collaborate with you on a remediation plan that makes sense for your organizational goals, timeline, and budget, and to start making fixes right away. Our goal is to help you have a fully accessible website, one that conforms with ADA, Section 508, and WCAG guidelines, in the shortest amount of time.
Quick Benefits
- Gain a rapid understanding of your website’s current accessibility status.
- Receive easily digestible information in manageable reports.
- Create a remediation plan that fits your timeline and budget.
- Start making fixes right away.
Our Audit to CertificationTM Process
Our website accessibility audits are more than an automated scan – because when it comes to accessibility, AI can only get you so far. Our process includes both automated testing and manual review by trained accessibility professionals and visually impaired testers – real-world users of assistive technology – with the goal of rapidly remediating errors and certifying your website as accessible.
- Automated scan of full website and manual review of up to 5 representative pages.
- Meeting to discuss initial audit and determine timeline for remediation.
- Publish accessibility statement on website to share efforts with your audience.
- Remediation in tandem with continued manual review of all pages.
- User testing with blind and visually impaired testers to confirm remediation.
- Certification of conformance issued to website.
- Ongoing monitoring and/or accessibility training for your team.
Why Accessibility Matters
Having an accessible website and supporting digital equality is not just good karma, it’s good for business, too. Even changes made incrementally over time can make a big difference in your website’s usability and have a positive impact on your brand reputation.
Reach Everyone In Your Audience
More than 1 billion people in the world and 1 in 4 U.S. adults have a disability. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, disabled Americans spend more than $200 billion every year on discretionary purchases.
Mitigate the Risk of Lawsuits and Fines
Across America, lawsuits resulting from inaccessible websites are on the rise. Depending upon your audience, industry, and sources of funds, your website may need to meet the requirements of one or multiple laws.
Improve Your Search Engine Ranking
Many accessibility fixes can also improve your website’s search engine performance – from better optimizing the site with appropriate keywords, to improving the HTML structure, to reducing bounce rate because users of all abilities will be able to better navigate the site and engage with content.
Be an Upstanding Internet Citizen
Many types of disabilities and conditions, including age or situational challenges, make it hard for individuals to interact with websites in a traditional manner. Not having an accessible website makes it challenging for these individuals to do things that many of us take for granted. Having an accessible website is the right thing to do.
Get a Free Risk Assessment
We will scan your website’s homepage and show you a report of what errors were found.
We’ll also tell you which accessibility laws might apply to your organization.
Fill out the following form to request a risk assessment for your website. Each risk assessment includes a PDF report of accessibility errors found on your home page and a 45-minute call with a team member to review the results.
Website Accessibility Audits FAQs
In our experience, unless you are already extensively focusing on website accessibility, there are likely accessibility issues present on your current website that need to be fixed. Nearly all websites and applications have accessibility problems because, unfortunately, we have not yet reached a point where all designers and developers make accessibility a priority.
If you’re not sure that our services are right for you, we recommend getting one of our free risk assessments. These assessments tell you:
- If there are any errors present on your website.
- If there are website accessibility laws that may apply to your organization.
You can request a risk assessment at no charge, above.
Depending upon your organization’s audience, industry, and fund sources, your website may be required to be compliant with a number of laws or accessibility guidelines. Some of the most common standards include:
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
- Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
- Section 508
Our accessibility experts can help you identify which laws apply to your organization and craft a custom plan for ensuring that your website is 100% compliant now and on an ongoing basis.
Our approach to website accessibility audits is unique because our audits are intended to be the beginning of a larger remediation partnership.
It is our goal to make achieving an accessible website easy for you and your organization. In our experience, large PDF reports and huge Excel files or spreadsheets with row after row of accessibility errors are not actionable documents. They’re overwhelming to read and don’t easily allow for tracking issues as they’re corrected.
Additionally, unless you need a VPAT or are otherwise trying to extensively document the accessibility of your website or application, we recognize that the purpose of your accessibility audit is not to receive a massive document; the purpose of the audit is to determine what problems exist, how to prioritize them, and create a timeline for fixes that begins as soon as possible.
We have found that manually reviewing 5 representative pages (in addition to running an automated scan of the whole website), provides us with a solid understanding of the scope of fixes needed and allows us to quickly move into the remediation phase. During the remediation phase, every page of your website will receive a manual review.
For the initial manual review, we recommend choosing up to five pages that are representative of various types of content on your website, such as:
- your home page,
- a service or product page,
- your blog archive,
- an individual blog post, and
- a page with a form or other complex functionality such as advanced filtering, checkout/cart features, or maps.
During the remediation phase, every page of your website will receive a manual review, so don’t worry if you have more than 5 pages that you want us to look at and test. In order to certify your website as conforming to WCAG standards, our trained accessibility testers will look at every page of your site.
Yes! Our approach to website accessibility audits is unique because our audits are intended to be the beginning of a larger remediation partnership.
It is our goal to make achieving an accessible website easy for you and your organization. Rather than giving you a massive report and leaving you to make the fixes on your own, our team is here to make the fixes for or with you as makes sense for your organization.
To learn more about our approach to website accessibility remediation, visit our remediation page.
If you request a risk assessment, you’ll be able to schedule a meeting to go over your assessment at a time that makes sense for you. Typically we have your risk assessment complete and are available to meet to discuss it within 24 hours.
Our initial accessibility audits generally take 5 business days from the date you sign up and pay your deposit.
Remediation timelines are unique for every client depending upon several items, including the number of problems present on the site and the budget available for fixes. Our goal is to remediate all issues as quickly as possible, and some clients choose to have an intense remediation phase over several weeks following the audit. Other clients may elect to enter a remediation plan that stretches over many months due to the number of problems that need to be addressed, the number of pages requiring manual review, and their budget.
Yes. Our team has developed accessible websites and web applications and has provided accessibility consulting for large universities, government agencies, and enterprise-level clients.
Yes. We’re happy to provide accessibility audits and consulting to other marketing agencies and WordPress theme or plugin developers. We strongly believe in making the internet a more accessible place and love having the opportunity to review and provide recommendations to free and commercial themes and plugins.
