In today’s digital age, ensuring everyone can access an organization’s online content is more than just a legal requirement—it’s about creating inclusive experiences that welcome all users and grow online business and engagement.
As a digital agency, your clients rely on you to build websites and applications that not only comply with increasing US and global regulations but also resonate with people from all walks of life.
At Allyant, the global leader in website and PDF accessibility solutions, we can’t stress enough the importance of partnering with a specialized digital accessibility provider.
Compliance is no longer optional with the recent increase in regulations from the DOJ and HHS in the United States and Canada doubling down on digital accessibility and the European Accessibility Act deadlines on the near horizon (just to name a few). Incorporating third-party live-user testing is essential to meet these rigorous standards and avoid legal pitfalls for your clients. Digital agencies must prioritize finding the right partner to navigate these complex requirements and deliver truly inclusive experiences.
In this article, we will break down the importance of picking a reputable accessibility partner and the key elements that will drive long-term success for your agency.
The Importance of Agencies Working with a Third-Party Accessibility Vendor for Their Clients
Accessibility is a complex field that requires specialized knowledge and tools. Rather than trying to navigate a complex environment and misspeak on a topic that can be confusing while also creating real legal risk for your clients, most agencies are taking the sound approach of working with a third-party expert in digital accessibility.
A reputable third-party vendor like Allyant offers dedicated expertise, staying in-tune with the latest WCAG standards and global legal requirements. This specialization ensures that websites are not only compliant but also provide a seamless user experience for all individuals, including those with disabilities.
Another critical element for both your agency and clients is that an external vendor provides an unbiased and well-documented evaluation of a website’s accessibility, identifying issues that internal teams might overlook due to a lack of familiarity with the WCAG success criteria, relying only on automated testing tools or having a vested interest that can create a conflict of interest.
This objectivity is crucial for ensuring comprehensive compliance and usability. In fact, this is the reason why our digital team at Allyant only performs live-user assessments supporting our clients and global digital agency partners but leaves the design, development, and remediation of websites and mobile applications to your team of experts!
At Allyant, we employ live-user testing, including native screen reader users, to uncover real-world accessibility issues that automated tools miss. Any honest accessibility vendor will outline that automated testing tools can realistically assess about one-third of the WCAG success criteria.
Beyond this, automated tools cannot test complex components or functionality and view accessibility as only a compliance standard without factoring in the usability of a website or mobile application. This thorough approach ensures all aspects of accessibility are addressed, from code compliance to user experience.
What Agencies Should Look for in a Strong Digital Accessibility Vendor
One of the challenges with the complexity of accessibility for digital agencies includes finding a reputable partner that can help their internal design and development team build inclusive products while also ensuring their account management and sales teams are aligned with a strong partner to drive client success.
For starters, your team should be keen on looking for an accessibility vendor with a documented and proven track record of successfully auditing and helping teams remediate websites and mobile applications.
Additionally, most agencies fall into the pitfall of picking the cheap or easy accessibility solution verses considering the downstream client success and risk mitigation.
For example, simply telling your clients to deploy any form of automated-only solution without informing them of the potential shortfalls in creating an equitable experience and future litigation support can be harmful to their trust in your agency if they do eventually face a demand letter or lawsuit claiming non-conformance.
Your accessibility vendor should have certified professionals, especially when thinking about the bigger picture and considering the California Senate Bill (SB1486), which would require this if passed in the current state of the draft, who are well-versed in WCAG standards and legal regulations.
At Allyant, not only are we a platinum-level IAAP member, but all of our accessibility engineers (auditors) also go through certifications with their globally-recognized programs as part of their ongoing training to benefit our clients and partners.
Furthermore, Accessibility is not a one-time task but an ongoing commitment. A reliable vendor will offer continuous support and updates to ensure your client’s website and applications remain compliant as standards evolve, or your team refreshes existing digital properties or builds new features, components, and templates over time.
Allyant also provides training resources to empower your team in maintaining accessibility standards internally, helping both of our teams work closely together to build a sustainable partnership that benefits not only shared clients but, perhaps most importantly, visitors with disabilities accessing the digital properties your team is building and maintaining.
The Pitfalls and Legal Risks for a Web Development Agency Attempting to Perform Accessibility Testing Internally
The unfortunate reality is that most digital agencies do not have native users of assistive technology on their teams.
In many cases, even if they download a screen reader, they do not navigate or test their websites or mobile applications like a user with a disability who requires this technology for their entire connection with the digital world.
This gap can lead to incomplete or entirely incorrect implementations, leaving significant accessibility issues unresolved and ultimately creating a loss of time and resources for both the agency and their client.
Without a dedicated focus, accessibility measures might be applied inconsistently across projects, leading to non-compliance and potential legal risks for clients. Internal development teams might also rely too heavily on automated tools, which cannot detect all issues—specifically those within complex components.
This is a fantastic starting point, and I strongly recommend our agency partners leverage our Allyant HUB testing tool when building any new content or pages, but this has limitations.
If an agency informs their client they are WCAG or ADA compliant purely based on limited experience or relying solely on automated testing tools, the website could actually be far from conformant and lead to future demand letters or lawsuits for the client, specifically in e-commerce and retail or other B2C industries.
Recent updates in regulations from the DOJ and HHS lead to large fines if your team is building digital properties for Title II or Healthcare clients.
At Allyant, not only do we ensure testing to the latest and greatest of the WCAG success criteria by leveraging our unique paired-auditing process that includes a screen reader user to factor in usability natively in our testing, but we also have an Accessibility Claims Team that helps our clients and their external legal counsel in litigating any demand letters or lawsuits filed against their website or mobile applications.
Of course, in many cases, for ‘new’ clients to Allyant,their digital properties may not be in a highly usable state if they have purely relied on automated testing or an overlay-only solution based on recommendations from their digital agency.
For existing clients who have shown valid good-faith effort and testing process with an ongoing commitment to accessibility, their digital properties tend to be in a far greater state of conformance, and we can provide strong support for their legal team or external counsel.
If your agency is considering a potential web accessibility partner, I’d strongly recommend you ask them about documentation on their litigation support and how they would support your clients in the case of a demand letter or lawsuit against their website.
Purely relying on ‘templated’ responses does not work against the high-volume plaintiffs or supporting an external legal counsel team in defense of the client. Allyant has worked on many of the landmark accessibility cases and would be happy to chat with you about how our Accessibility Claims Team provides unrivaled vendor support for your team and clients in the case of legal action for non-conformance!
The Growing Demands for Clients Requesting Third-Party Testing of Their Websites When Choosing a Web Development Agency
I believe this largely comes from education on WCAG and ADA compliance for websites and other digital properties over time — specifically as more and more organizations have faced legal action at some point — and teams see the increased global regulations and pressure to be compliant.
However, we have seen and heard from other long-standing agency partners that clients are increasingly demanding verifiable proof of accessibility compliance before engaging in a website project. Third-party testing provides an objective guarantee that a website meets all necessary standards, enhancing your agency’s credibility and ensuring you can drive long-term engagements with your clients above all else.
Agencies that collaborate with a reputable accessibility vendor can differentiate themselves in the market from a sales and customer success perspective. Offering third-party validated accessibility as part of your services meets client demands and attracts businesses committed to inclusivity.
Additionally, if you work with our team at Allyant as your partner, we collaborate directly with your team on helping clients understand the pitfalls of non-conformance or less-than-ideal solutions.
This allows us to act as a strong partner, take the pressure off your team in needing to be experts on this topic, and ultimately create a win-win for shared clients and their end users.Thorough testing by experts, including live-user testing with screen reader users, ensures that websites are truly usable for everyone. This focus on real-world usability not only meets compliance standards but also improves overall user satisfaction and engagement.
Partnering with Allyant: Your Ideal Digital Accessibility Partner
This blog has outlined how the right accessibility partner is crucial for digital agencies striving to deliver inclusive and compliant digital experiences while also winning new business and retaining existing clients.
At Allyant, we specialize exclusively in accessibility, ensuring there’s no conflict of interest between our teams. Unlike some vendors that may overlap with your services, our singular focus on accessibility means we’re dedicated to supporting your agency’s success without any competition for your core business.
Our goal is to act and integrate like a strong partner, ensuring your team is confident you are providing the best possible solution for your clients. We can also leverage our team as a sales and client retainment resource. Starting from day one—we become expert accessibility support for your agency!
Our seamless integration into your existing workflow allows us to support your team on a project of any complexity. With our bilateral JIRA integration, syncing issues between our Allyant HUB and your development sprints is effortless.
This streamlined approach ensures that accessibility considerations are addressed proactively and efficiently, reducing bottlenecks and keeping projects on track. This is also extended by our team offering a dedicated Customer Success Manager for your team and all shared clients.
We go beyond basic testing by integrating directly into your design and development lifecycle for any project type — from an audit of an existing website that needs ongoing improvement or a net-new client engagement where accessibility is baked in from the get-go (which I’d strongly recommend for all new projects!).
Whether it’s conducting reviews of designs in a design system such as FIGMA or performing pre-production testing in agile development sprint releases, Allyant embeds accessibility into every phase of your project plan to reduce timelines and missed releases that tend to de-prioritize accessibility. This holistic approach not only enhances the quality of your deliverables but also helps you stay ahead of compliance requirements.
Our platform-agnostic expertise allows us to support all web and mobile platforms, providing comprehensive testing and validation that meets the unique needs of each project. No matter the technology stack or the complexity of the application, Allyant’s team is equipped to ensure your digital products are accessible to all users.
As the only full-service accessibility solutions provider, we offer a breadth of services that go beyond just websites and mobile applications. Our long-standing leadership in PDF and digital document remediation and software sets us apart from other accessibility vendors, ensuring all aspects of your digital content meet the highest accessibility standards with a single accessibility partnership.
By partnering with Allyant, digital agencies gain a trusted ally dedicated to helping them deliver accessible, compliant, and user-friendly digital experiences.
We would love to chat further about how we could support your digital agency and provide your team with a robust accessibility vendor to support your team and clients. Learn more and reach out to have a discussion with our partnership team.
