For those with disabilities accessing digital content can be challenging. It is important for most businesses to select a content management system that supports accessibility. However, this is only part of the process and good design remain of great importance.
To understand more about the topic, Digital Journal spoke with David Moradi, CEO of AudioEye (AEYE) a SaaS company offering a solution to make digital content accessible to individuals with disabilities.
Digital Journal: Can you provide a brief background on AudioEye?
David Moradi: Founded as a research and development firm in 2005, AudioEye has evolved into a technology company, supporting businesses and organizations around the world in building accessible and inclusive digital experiences for users with disabilities.
At AudioEye, we believe that everyone, regardless of ability, should have equal access to the internet and the opportunities and conveniences it affords. We also believe that our approach to accessibility — which pairs automation with human expertise — is the most effective and practical way for businesses of all sizes to make their sites accessible and keep up with accessibility standards as they update their websites and add new content.
As a result of our continuous investment in research and development, AudioEye’s automation can detect up to 70 percent of common accessibility errors on a website and solve two-thirds of the detected issues in real-time, instantly improving access to digital content and tools for millions of users. We work with people with disabilities and use their feedback in our product development and quality assurance to ensure our solution continuously meets the needs of the end user.
DJ: What are some of the key regulations that companies need to follow to make their websites accessible for people with disabilities?
Moradi: The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is one of the key legislations that prohibits discrimination based on disability. The Department of Justice (DOJ), which enforces the ADA, considers business websites “places of public accommodation” under the Title III of the ADA. To stay compliant with the ADA, companies need to make sure their websites are accessible to people who browse the internet using assistive devices, such as screen readers.
But the ADA, which was signed into law in 1990, doesn’t provide technical guidance or specific legal criteria for implementing digital accessibility. Instead, the courts and the DOJ point to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and Section 508 Standards as technical guideposts for businesses to follow.
Earlier this year, the DOJ published new guidance reaffirming that web accessibility is a legal requirement under the ADA and citing WCAG as a technical standard for businesses to follow. The guidance includes a few specific recommendations, such as adding text alternatives (alt text) in images, providing video captions, using headings to indicate hierarchy of information on a page, and so on.
The DOJ guidance is a reminder that under the law, in our increasingly digital world, access to online content and properties is no different from access to a physical location.
DJ: Why do you feel that digital accessibility is so important?
Moradi: Digital accessibility is the inclusive practice of making websites, digital tools, and technologies accessible and usable for people with disabilities. As our dependence on the internet grows, digital accessibility becomes critical in ensuring that we don’t systematically block people with disabilities, which represents 26 percent of adults in the United States, from accessing information, services, and opportunities online – whether it’s to book a doctor’s appointment, make a purchase, or apply for a job.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought to light the digital accessibility gap and the urgency to ensure equal access to the internet. When people can’t book a vaccine appointment in the middle of a pandemic, that’s a crisis of our own making. There’s no turning back on digital transformation the sooner we start prioritizing digital accessibility, the better. And, to be successful in our efforts, we need to provide businesses and organizations with accessibility tools and resources they need to tackle the dynamic nature of websites and the fast pace of digital transformation.
Every change or addition on a site — whether it’s a new sign-up form, an image, or a plugin — can compromise its accessibility. Every time someone makes an update, however small, there’s a chance that they’ll create an accessibility problem without even realizing it. Even the websites that have accessibility included in the development process are still vulnerable to accessibility errors. So ongoing effort is key to ensuring digital accessibility.
Considering that 70 percent of business owners and web professionals worry about the cost of accessibility, it’s also important that we provide website owners and content creators with affordable and sustainable solutions, if we want equal access across the Internet.
DJ: How does AudioEye’s software help make websites accessible?
Moradi: AudioEye’s automation provides support at every step of the accessibility process — from finding and fixing errors in real-time to ongoing monitoring and reporting. Our patented JavaScript-enabled automation solution is capable of detecting about 70% of common accessibility issues on a website (low contrast text, empty links, missing alt text for images, etc.), using more than 400 test outcomes and resolving about two-thirds of detected errors with a suite of 70+ automated fixes.
Our automation delivers results without making fundamental changes to website architecture, source code, or browser-based tools — all of which requires working with developers and is prohibitively expensive. Making changes at source code also means taking months to fix detected issues, leaving site visitors with inaccessible experiences in the meantime. AudioEye removes these barriers, making it easier for businesses of all sizes to keep their sites accessible.
AudioEye’s Active Monitoring and Issue Reporting real-time dashboard allow even a non-technical user to track their site’s accessibility and AudioEye’s performance in detail, understand how accessibility errors impact users with different disabilities, and prioritize fixes.
AudioEye’s team of accessibility experts, web developers and engineers, data scientists, and members of the disability community (as part of the AudioEye A11iance) work together to build and continuously improve our technology.
We recognize that automation alone is not a complete solution today, but it provides rapid improvements at scale. So we pair automation with human expertise. People pick up where automation leaves off. Our team of certified experts and assistive technology users manually test content across various browsers and assistive technologies to fix complex issues that require deeper contextual understanding. For example, automation can detect a missing image description or alt text, but it cannot tell you whether an alt text is an accurate or meaningful description of an image.
DJ: What trends are you seeing in this area?
Moradi: As the awareness around digital accessibility increases, often as part of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, along with the legal pressure (accessibility lawsuits are on the rise), more businesses prioritize accessibility in their web design development and ongoing website upkeep.
We also see a gradual shift from looking at digital accessibility as a compliance or risk mitigation issue to viewing it as an opportunity to improve the user experience for all users and increase online visibility. We can look at voice search optimization as an example. According to the Google Mobile Voice Study, 41 percent of US adults and 55 percent of teens use voice search daily. Businesses with websites optimized for voice search have a better chance of being discovered and used by potential customers.
As more businesses, big and small, begin to prioritize digital accessibility, automation is becoming increasingly critical in solving the digital accessibility gap. Automation allows businesses of all sizes — including mom-and-pop stores with Shopify sites — to create accessible experiences for their online customers and stay compliant. Before automation, very few companies could dedicate the resources – money and developer time – to traditional consulting approaches, which have not scaled to the problem.
