At Allyant, we provide comprehensive accessibility solutions, including expert web accessibility services. In this blog post, we will discuss the term “web accessibility services” and what is included under the umbrella of web accessibility services – including some key elements that your team should consider when selecting a third-party vendor to support your web accessibility goals.
What exactly are Web Accessibility services?
Web accessibility services, as the name implies, are solutions that help ensure that people with various disabilities have equitable access to the Internet. These can include standard websites, mobile responsive websites accessed through a mobile browser, or more complex web applications such as a Learning Management System, HR-related services, or Healthcare Service Platforms, to name a few.
More broadly, this is commonly referred to as Digital Accessibility Services, which is a catch-all term for these diverse web-based access points.
A primary web accessibility service offered by niche expert solutions is web accessibility auditing, which involves thoroughly reviewing websites or web applications for accessibility errors. In most scenarios, an error would be defined mainly as failing to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) or a usability barrier outlined by an assistive technology user.
During web accessibility audits, accessibility issues are tracked and reported to the organization requesting the audit. Assuming the audit and related services are done thoroughly, the client should have clear information and knowledge that outlines their website violations and an explicit recommendation of how to resolve those issues with examples of accessible code or components.
This will ensure you have an audit and a clear path to efficiently and effectively making your website as compliant as possible with WCAG and other web accessibility standards while providing a solid user experience for individuals leveraging assistive technology.
What is included in web accessibility services?
Web/digital accessibility audits
As previously mentioned, web/digital accessibility auditing is a leading web accessibility service offered by many companies worldwide, including Allyant.
Allyant uses the term “digital accessibility auditing” because we audit other digital properties besides traditional websites. At Allyant, we conduct live-user audits in a paired testing process to ensure the most comprehensive coverage and assessment of the WCAG Success Criteria. This paired process ensures that our audits include a native user of screen reader technology in every scenario, covering testing with both JAWS and NVDA in line with global usage from the screen reader community.
By pairing a native screen reader (blind or low vision) user with a sighted accessibility engineer, we ensure the broadest coverage of the WCAG Success Criteria and cover usability testing and a path to a truly equal experience for assistive technology users in a single website assessment.
On this note, if your team is considering a website audit from a niche third party (which is strongly recommended for compliance tracking), you should ensure that this testing not only includes a native assistive technology user to ensure you are obtaining the most comprehensive audit possible but also consider the background experience of these testers.
For example, all of our accessibility engineers here at Allyant undergo extensive training on our WCAG conformance process, and they also obtain third-party credentials to ensure the most robust daily delivery to our clients. This includes IAAP certifications such as CPACC, WAS, and the DHS Trusted Tester program.
In addition to live-user testing or obtaining an audit, one of the most critical steps in driving compliance and usability of your web properties is ensuring your team has the resources to perform successful remediation.
At Allyant, all our audits are delivered into our fully accessible issue management system built specifically to ensure real-time remediation road mapping and issues tracking. This is called our HUB Accessibility Management System, which allows for easy identification and management of accessibility issues on your company’s website or web (and mobile) applications.
Not only does the Allyant HUB provide a bi-lateral integration into JIRA to ensure seamless accessibility sprint planning for your development team, but we also integrated directly into a robust Knowledge Base with sample code, training videos, and a robust, accessible component library to upskill your team to successful remediation of accessibility barriers regardless of experience.
Procuring and deploying accessible third-party applications, either embedded on your website or as a standalone solution, is also critical in your overall web accessibility roadmap.
To help streamline accessibility procurement, Allyant is also proud to offer ProcureEnsure. This free web accessibility service enables organizations to receive live-user testing feedback on potential accessibility barriers before they purchase, deploy, or renew a third-party application.
PDF accessibility
Another prominent web accessibility service is ensuring that digital documents on your website, generally PDFs, are accessible to users with disabilities. Often, organizations invest time and resources into their websites and make great strides, only to block users’ access by requiring digital documents to obtain information or retain services.
Any sound web accessibility strategy must ensure both your website or platform and digital documents are accessible to provide full access to information to all users.
Allyant simplifies this process as the only vendor in the accessibility industry that provides expert web accessibility auditing, best-in-class software, and remediation software to ensure your PDFs and other digital documents are accessible. Allyant offers several PDF accessibility solutions, including the free PDF Validator software to assess your PDFs for their current state of accessibility.
Since PDFs are so widely used, these documents must be accessible to blind or low-vision website visitors who rely on screen reader technology and users with other types of disabilities.
VPATs
VPATs (Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates) are commonly used in the web accessibility industry, especially if you sell your web services, applications, or platform to organizations to deploy to their consumer base. A VPAT is a government-issued template that aims to ensure a product’s compliance with accessibility standards.
Allyant offers a VPAT service to assist organizations with creating VPATs. A VPAT is valuable when demonstrating the accessibility of a particular product. It also shows an organization’s commitment to inclusivity, which can boost sales. VPATs are frequently used in the education industry and public and private sectors.
