For blind internet users, business website accessibility fixes can be worse than the flaws
Patrick Perdue, a radio enthusiast who is blind, regularly shopped for equipment through the website of Ham Radio Outlet. The website’s code allowed him to easily move through the sections of each page with his keyboard, his screen reader speaking the text.
That all changed when the store started using an automated accessibility tool, often called an accessibility overlay, that is created and sold by the company accessiBe. Suddenly, the site became too difficult for Perdue to navigate. The accessiBe overlay introduced code that was supposed to fix any original coding errors and add more accessible features. But it reformatted the page, and some widgets — such as the checkout and shopping cart buttons — were hidden from Perdue’s screen reader. Labels for images and buttons were coded incorrectly. He could no longer find the site’s search box or the headers he needed to navigate each section of the page, he said.
Perdue is one of hundreds of people with disabilities who have complained about issues with automated accessibility web services, whose popularity has risen sharply in recent years because of advances in AI and new legal pressures on companies to make their websites accessible.
More than a dozen companies provide these tools. Two of the largest, AudioEye and UserWay, are publicly traded and reported revenues in the millions in recent financial statements. Some charge monthly fees ranging from about $50-$1,000, according to their websites, while others charge annual fees in the several-hundred-dollar or thousand-dollar range. (Pricing is typically presented in tiers and depends on how many pages a site has.) These companies list major corporations like Hulu, eBay and Uniqlo, as well as hospitals and local governments, among their clients.
Built into their pitch is often a reassurance that their services will not only help people who are blind or low vision use the internet more easily but also keep companies from facing the litigation that can arise if they do not make their sites accessible.
But it is not working out that way. Users like Perdue say the software offers little help, and some of the clients that use AudioEye, accessiBe and UserWay are facing legal action anyway. Last year, more than 400 companies with an accessibility widget or overlay on their website were sued over accessibility, according to data collected by a digital accessibility provider.
“I’ve not yet found a single one that makes my life better,” said Perdue, 38, who lives in Queens, New York. “I spend more time working around these overlays than I actually do navigating the website.”
Last year, more than 700 accessibility advocates and web developers signed an open letter calling on organizations to stop using these tools, writing that the practical value of the new features was “largely overstated” and that the “overlays themselves may have accessibility problems.” The letter also noted that, like Perdue, many blind users already had screen readers or other software to help them while online.
AudioEye, UserWay and accessiBe said they shared the goal of making websites more accessible, acknowledging to some extent that their products are not perfect. Lionel Wolberger, the chief operating officer of UserWay, said the company had apologized for the issues with its tools and had worked to fix them, pledging to do the same for anyone else who points out problems. AccessiBe declined to answer questions about specific criticisms of its product, but Josh Basile, a spokesperson for the company, criticized the open letter against overlays, saying it was “pushing the conversation in the wrong direction.” He added, though, that the company was willing to learn from feedback.
All three companies said their products would get better over time, and both AudioEye and UserWay said they were investing in research and development to improve artificial intelligence abilities.
David Moradi, CEO of AudioEye, said his automated service and others like it were the only way to fix the internet’s millions of active websites — a vast majority of which are not accessible for people who are blind or low vision. “Automation has to come into play. Otherwise, we’re never going to fix this problem, and this is a massive problem,” he said.
Accessibility experts, however, would prefer that companies not use automated accessibility overlays. Ideally, they say, organizations would hire and train full-time employees to oversee these efforts. But doing so can be difficult.
“There is absolutely a call for people with accessibility experience, and the jobs are out there,” said Adrian Roselli, who has worked as a digital accessibility consultant for two decades. “The skills aren’t there yet to match because it’s been such a niche industry for so long.”