Beware snake oil salesmen!
Website accessibility can seem a bit overwhelming, especially when you first start learning about it. You might be tempted to use a 3rd party accessibility “solution” because it offers to fix all your website problems just by dropping a line of code into your website, making it fully compliant with the regulations.
Amazing really.
It almost sounds too good to be good to be true.
Of course it is too good to be true.
They do not, I repeat, not, make a website compliant with anything and they actually make websites less accessible for many disabled people.
In fact, one provider, AccessiBe, has recently been ordered to pay a $1 million fine for misleading advertising by the US Government.
Another provider, Userway, is facing a class action lawsuit from its clients who bought their product, believing it would protect them from being sued.
In reality, they were sued because their products did not such thing.
Accessibility toolbars are a good thing but only if they are part of the website’s native code, rather than some horrendous 3rd party overlay that will not make your website compliant in any way.
For more info on this, please go to overlayfactsheet.com.
