WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Question about Accessibility plugins

for

From: chagnon@pubcom.com
Date: Jun 7, 2019 12:34PM

As a business person with an MBA, I don't know how managers can justify the
band aid approach: it just throws good money at media (websites, documents,
PDFs, ePUBs, A/V, whatever) that wasn't built correctly to begin with. An
elementary break-even analysis (B/E) would show this clearly.

A similar model used in our American medical culture. Don't cure the disease
or prevent it: just medicate it into submission and keep milking the
population for the long term.

There's a time and place to take medicines, as well as to patch a website or
document with this technology or that one. But the majority of stuff should
be built correctly right from the start. Everything would run so much
smoother.

- - -
Bevi Chagnon, founder/CEO | <EMAIL REMOVED>
- - -
PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
consulting . training . development . design . sec. 508 services
Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
- - -
Latest blog-newsletter - Accessibility Tips at www.PubCom.com/blog

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Scott
Tate
Sent: Friday, June 7, 2019 2:15 PM
To: Birkir R. Gunnarsson < <EMAIL REMOVED> >; WebAIM Discussion
List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Question about Accessibility plugins

I wouldn't necessarily say the fines are over stated. From our view
(Blndspt.com) we see settlements between 20 and 50k regularly. Some folks
tend to ratchet that up a bit depending on the target client.

However, let me give you a quick example of overlays:

We built a quote for a client to remediate an entire site for x dollars. 3
years ago, they got quotes for the same thing. At the time, they decided
the price was too high to fix their 100+ pages and decided to go the overlay
route. As everyone out there does, 3 years later, they've been paying for
the overlay annual fees, and guess how much they've spent in 3 years? You
guessed it, MORE THAN X!

As a result, they are no farther along, have literally learning nothing
about accessibility, are in the same position they were in 3 years ago
having spent that budget on a band aid instead of fixing the problem. From
our view, the vast majority of folks that use overlays generally:
1) Spend the amount they would have spent to fix the problem within
24 months (or less)
2) Never learn what it means to build a culture of accessibility in
your organization
3) Never end up fixing root issues
4) End up spending the same amount again anyway a few years down the
road to finally fix the issues.

Just our perspective. We work with Karl a lot, so we read all of the
overlay articles, and we wholeheartedly agree that overlays are making the
problem worse in the world.

Cheers,
Scott Tate
Chief Information Officer
http://www.blndspt.com/accessibility


-----Original Message-----
From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Thursday, June 6, 2019 1:04 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Question about Accessibility plugins

Check out the Accessibility overlays don't work website:
https://overlaysdontwork.com/
karl Groves also has multiple articles on the topic and I agree with them.
You can Google "karl groves accessibility overlays"

Looking at this particular homepage I notice they exaggerate the fines
levied under ADA lawsuits ($50000 for first, $100000 for subsequent, I've
never heard those numbers anywhere, under the ADA you cannot award damages,
only fees, you can under some state regulations, particularly California,
but those are not mentioned on the site).
Also the alt text for the accessibility statistics is inserted kind of
inside an unrelated sentence, I would fail that under 1.3.2 WCAG content
order, the site itself is not perfect.
It also way overdoses on ARIA landmark regions, though I would flag it as a
usability concern, not a fail.

The big question, if this is an overlay that you purchse. Is the vendor
willing to assume full responsibility and indemnify your website team from
any litigation claims?
That is real accessibility guarantee.
Another approach would be to install the plugin then run a full automated
and manual accessibility testing of the content with the plugin installed.
That will ultimately give you a state of accessibility of the particular
site using the particular plugin.
Again, if you are paying for it, that might be part of the contract, any
issues discovered through the process would have to be remedied by the
plugin provider at no cost to you.



On 6/6/19, Mike Barlow < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> I'm working with a company who is developing a site (using Wordpress)
> and their developers installed the "Userway Web Accessibility Widgit
> <https://userway.org/>" and wanted my opinion of it.
> Now I have my own opinions of "magic bullets" that you can just "drop
> this in and your site is accessible", and I've seen a couple of them
> over the years and have yet to find one that I would include in any
> site I was developing.
> I also did some searching for feedback on the Userway widgit - one
> from "A Bright Clear Web
>
<https://www.abrightclearweb.com/the-userway-web-accessibility-widget-does-i
t-boost-accessibility/>"
> had both good and bad comments about it, and there was even a question
> on Quora
> <https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-of-accessibility-widget-like-
> userway-org-Do-they-help-small-sites-to-be-adhere-with-accessibility-l
> aws>
> about it.
>
> But I want to get some real expert opinions from this group before I
> tell the customer what I think.
>
> So, anyone out there with any experience (both good and bad) about the
> Userway widgit???
>
> TIA.
> *Mike Barlow*
> Development Manager
> Web Accessibility/Section 508 SME
>
> Lancaster, Pa 17601
> Office: 732.835-7557
> Cell: 732.682.8226
> e-mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >


--
Work hard. Have fun. Make history.

http://webaim.org/discussion/archives