Web accessibility helps ensure that your website is usable for everyone, regardless of a disability or impairment. Almost 2 billion people living with disabilities worldwide, and web accessibility practices benefit people of all abilities.

Why web accessibility matters

There are many benefits to making your website accessible. Here are some of the reasons why accessibility matters for your business. 

Visitors with an impairment or disability might not be able to access or use portions of your website.
Many people experience temporary or situational impairments that will impact their website use. Injuries, migraines, or lost eye glasses are common examples.
Everyone benefits from accessibility best practices such as clear language, colour contrast, and heading structure.
Accessible websites have clean, structured code, which makes them easier to crawl, improving SEO performance.
There are legal implications to ensuring your website is accessible, including the Accessible Canada Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

How accessibility audits work

Our accessibility audits are focused on problem-solving. Most websites can't be perfectly accessible in every scenario, but the goal for most organizations isn't perfection, it's improvement. We help you understand the issues on your website, so you can prioritize the solutions. 

Code review

We analyze the code on your site, checking for common problems. We use tools such as Google Lighthouse and AIM Wave, and we manually review the code for specific items not detectable by these tools. 

User testing

Automated tools only scratch the surface. Many of the issues related to accessibility involve a human sitting in front of your website, interactiving with the navigation, content, and functionality. We test it with several tools and techniques including screen readers. 

Education

We believe in empowering our clients to understand how things work. We include explanations of each topic and why it matters, helping you to improve your processes to avoid issues in the future.

Critical page analysis

We identify several pages that are important or could have unique accessibility issues, and we perform a deep analysis. We look for specific issues on those pages that can't be found in our broader audit. 

Recommendations

Audits are not just about identifying issues, but providing resources to correct them. These can vary depending on what we find, however the goal is always to empower you to improve.

Comprehensive report

We compile all of our findings and analysis into a comprehensive report that serves as a reference for any future work, as well as a guide on next steps. 

After the audit

An audit is the most valuable when you have a way to move forward with making changes and improvements. The reports are often over 40 pages in length, so it can feel daunting to start tackling the work. We provide a range of services to help transition from analysis, into action.

Review meeting

We wrap up the audit by providing a review meeting, where we answer any questions you have about the report, and also show you what we found and how it impacts accessibility.

We appreciate there's a lot to take in, so we get on a call, or in a room, and talk through it all. 

Staff training

Many accessibility issues stem from how your organization uses it's content management system, not necessiarly the code that runs it. 

We offer virtual and in-person training sessions where we sit down with your staff and provide guidance and training on how to ensure the website remains accessible. 

Vendor handoff

We appreciate the importance of your current vendor relationship. If another agency came in and critiqued our work, we might be a little defensive.

Our goal is to facilitate the conversation by providing a non-judgemental, respectful handoff to your vendor, so they can respond to the audit. Most vendors want to do good work, and there's always room for constructive feedback. 

Ready to discuss your website's accessibility?

To start the conversation and see what an accessibility report looks like, contact us.