Web Accessibility Archives /Tag

How New U.S. Laws Could Change Accessibility Lawsuits

Accessibility lawsuits often start the same way. Someone flags barriers on your site, a letter arrives, and your team is asked to respond fast. That moment is rarely tidy. You are dealing with legal exposure, technical facts, and a customer experience problem at the same time.

Lawmakers are now proposing changes that could affect how these complaints move forward. Some ideas focus on requiring notice and a short remediation window. Others aim to define clearer federal website standards. States are also experimenting with ways to discourage filings they view as abusive. These proposals can change timing and paperwork, but they do not change what users face on the site today.

Below, we’ll take a closer look at the proposals taking shape and what they may suggest for future enforcement.

Why Lawmakers Are Pushing for Accessibility Reform

Across the country, lawmakers are responding to concerns that show up again and again when teams talk about demand letters and claims. Some are about cost and volume. Others are about uncertainty and inconsistent expectations.

The Pressure From High-Volume Filings

One of the strongest drivers is the rise in high-volume filings that reuse the same allegations with only minor changes. These accessibility lawsuits regularly target small and mid-sized organizations that already have limited time and budget to respond. Even when a team wants to do the right thing, the first step is often paperwork, outside counsel, and internal coordination.

Recent data shows how often the same organizations get pulled back in. In 2025, more than 5,000 digital accessibility cases were filed, and over 1,400 involved businesses that had already faced an ADA web claim. In federal court, about 46 percent of filings named repeat defendants.

Why States Point to Missing Title III Web Standards

Another driver is the long-running frustration with the Department of Justice’s lack of clear Title III web standards. States point to that gap when explaining why they are stepping in. Without federal regulations, expectations vary by jurisdiction. That creates uneven enforcement and room for conflicting court outcomes, even when the underlying barrier is similar.

Balancing Litigation Reform and Civil Rights

It is also important to recognize what private enforcement has done for access. Many of the improvements users rely on today came from individuals asserting their rights and pushing systems to change. Reform proposals often say they are trying to reduce opportunistic litigation without weakening civil rights. At the same time, some disability advocates warn that certain approaches can delay access if timelines stretch too far or if progress requirements stay vague.

Lawmakers are moving in different directions to tackle these concerns. That brings us to the next question.

What kinds of changes are actually being proposed?

Three Legal Changes Shaping Accessibility Lawsuits

Across federal and state discussions, most proposals about accessibility lawsuits fall into three categories. Each one could influence how demand letters work and how teams respond.

Federal Notice and Remediation Window Proposals

Some members of Congress have suggested adding a requirement that a notice be given before a lawsuit can proceed. Under these proposals, organizations would receive a written description of the alleged barrier and a short remediation window to show progress. One example is the ADA 30 Days to Comply Act. It outlines a written notice, a 30-day period to describe improvements, and an additional period tied to demonstrated progress.

A key nuance matters here. The bill focuses on architectural barriers at existing public accommodations. People often discuss these proposals alongside digital claims, but the text is narrower than many headlines suggest. Even so, the structure signals interest in early notice paired with proof of meaningful action.

Federal Website Accessibility Standards Proposals

Alongside notice concepts, Congress is also considering action focused on digital accessibility standards. The Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act of 2025 aims to set uniform expectations for websites and applications. It also directs federal agencies to define standards, update them over time, and clarify how digital access fits within existing civil rights protections.

If a federal standard becomes established, organizations would have a clearer target to design and test against. That also means teams may have less room to argue that they were unsure what to follow. Day-to-day development, QA, and content workflows would matter more because compliance would depend on consistent results, not occasional one-time reviews.

State Laws Targeting Abusive Website Accessibility Litigation

Several states are exploring their own approaches. Kansas has already created a mechanism for determining whether website accessibility litigation is abusive. Courts can consider whether the business attempted to remediate issues within a set period and whether improvements occurred within a ninety-day window. Missouri has introduced similar bills built around notice, remediation timelines, and potential fee shifting for bad-faith claims.

These laws do not remove the obligation to maintain accessible websites. They focus on how courts should evaluate filings that appear designed for settlement volume rather than user access.

What May Change in Accessibility Lawsuits and What Will Not

These proposals could affect the process around accessibility lawsuits, but they do not change the core expectation that users need to complete tasks without barriers. It helps to separate what may shift from what stays the same.

What May Change

Organizations may receive more detailed notices that cite specific pages, steps, or interactions. Response timelines may tighten if new regulations define how quickly a team must respond or document progress. Settlement leverage could shift in places where remediation windows, presumptions, or fee-shifting concepts affect how cases are evaluated.

What Will Not Change

Users still run into barriers today. A delayed filing does not remove the barrier for someone trying to complete a checkout, submit a form, access account settings, or read essential content. If issues remain unresolved or progress is not measurable, legal action can still move forward. A remediation window is not extra time. It is a countdown.

Multi-State Website Compliance and Accessibility Risk

If your website serves users across the country, state-level differences create practical challenges. Exposure does not depend only on where a business is located. It also depends on where users live and which courts may have jurisdiction over a claim.

How State Approaches Differ

Florida uses a different model. Organizations can file a remediation plan in a public registry. Courts can consider this plan when evaluating good-faith actions and potential attorney fees in Title III cases filed within the state.

California has explored a small-business-focused approach, such as a 120-day window to fix issues before statutory damages or fees are available. These experiments show that states are testing different tools to encourage remediation and reduce rushed filings.

Teams need a repeatable way to keep their sites usable across many jurisdictions.

Remediation Windows and a 30-Day Response Plan

A remediation window helps only when teams can move with structure and focus. Without a workflow, the pressure to fix issues quickly can lead to patch-level changes that create new problems. A clear process prevents that and keeps everyone aligned.

Days 0 to 3

Capture the notice, save screenshots, and list the URLs and user steps cited. Assign a single internal owner who can coordinate legal, product, and development.

Days 4 to 10

Reproduce the issues on the named flows. Test with keyboard and at least one screen reader. Trace the problems back to specific components, templates, or vendor scripts so you can fix the causes, not just page-level symptoms.

Days 11 to 25

Run a focused remediation sprint. Prioritize barriers that block task completion. Involve design and quality assurance so that fixes fit your system and avoid new regressions.

Days 26 to 30

Retest the affected flows. Capture what changed, when it shipped, and how it was verified. Add any related systemic issues to your backlog with clear owners and target dates.

This type of workflow reveals the deeper tension behind many of these proposals. Reform can influence pacing, but the work of removing barriers remains the same.

Legislative Reform and Real Access

It is understandable that organizations want protection from high-volume filings that feel more like templates than tailored complaints. Responding takes time, budget, and focus, and many teams do not have much of any of those to spare.

At the same time, disability advocates warn that lengthy remediation windows can delay access. If the standard for demonstrating progress is vague, people with disabilities may wait longer for functional experiences. What matters most is that barriers get fixed and stay fixed.

This tension is unlikely to disappear. It will continue because expectations around digital access are rising.

How to Make Website Accessibility Sustainable

The most reliable way to reduce risk is to keep accessibility work steady and consistent. That includes defining a clear accessibility standard, often WCAG 2.1 AA in practice. It also means keeping a backlog that mirrors actual user journeys and testing flows, rather than focusing only on individual pages.

Build Around High-Value User Journeys

A backlog is most useful when it maps to tasks that support the business and the customer. That means prioritizing flows like navigation, product discovery, forms, authentication, and checkout, plus the templates and components that power them.

Prevent Regressions Between Releases

Development and content teams benefit from adding monitoring and release checks. This avoids regressions that might otherwise go unnoticed. Documenting testing steps, changes, and verification helps demonstrate good-faith progress if a notice arrives. For many organizations, reviewing vendor risk and third-party scripts is another important control point.

Track How Regulations Are Evolving

These practices are becoming more important as regulations solidify. The Department of Justice has already finalized its Title II rule for state and local governments. Although Title III remains unsettled, expectations around digital access are becoming more defined.

If you’re deciding where to start, focus on the tasks that matter most to users. Improving key tasks protects both customers and teams.

How Teams Can Stay Ready as Regulations Take Shape

As lawmakers continue shaping how digital access is defined, businesses deserve guidance that reduces confusion, not adds to it. Clear standards give teams room to plan, improve, and maintain their websites without fear of being caught off guard. They also help shift the conversation away from surprise claims and toward steady, predictable work that fits into normal development cycles.

If your organization wants help building a reliable accessibility plan that supports long-term stability, 216digital is here for you. Schedule a complementary ADA Strategy Briefing and let’s build a path that fits your team and your goals.

Greg McNeil

January 16, 2026

Legal Compliance

Accessibility, accessibility laws, Legal compliance, state accessibility laws, Web Accessibility, web accessibility lawsuits, Website Accessibility
How Digital Accessibility Is Changing in 2026

Running a website today means juggling a long list of responsibilities. Performance, security, content updates, design refreshes, AI experimentation, compliance questions. Accessibility often sits somewhere in the middle of that list. Important, but easy to push aside when other deadlines feel more urgent.

As 2026 gets closer, keeping up is becoming more difficult. Expectations are higher, changes are happening faster, and many website owners are wondering: What does this mean for my site? How much do I need to do? How can I keep up without always scrambling to fix accessibility?

If you’re trying to plan ahead, digital accessibility can feel like one more moving target. This article walks through three shifts shaping 2026 and offers a practical way to prepare without adding extra stress.

Shift 1: Why Digital Accessibility Is Becoming Core Website Infrastructure

One of the biggest changes in 2026 is how teams position the work. Instead of treating accessibility as a project with an end date, more organizations are treating it like website infrastructure. Similar to security or performance, it has to hold up through releases, new content, vendor updates, and design changes.

Why One-Time Accessibility Fixes No Longer Work for Modern Websites

For years, teams often handled accessibility as a one-time fix. They would address the issues, publish a report, and then move on. Most did the best they could with the time and resources available.

Now, teams notice how quickly earlier accessibility work can lose its value if it is not part of the site’s ongoing process. Work gets passed between teams, new content is added months later, and templates are reused in unexpected ways. Accessibility gaps come back, not because people ignore them, but because there are no consistent habits to support them.

This trend also appears in enforcement. In 2024, 41% of web accessibility lawsuits were copycat cases, according to UseableNet. Many of these organizations had already tried to improve accessibility, but as their sites changed, old issues resurfaced, or new ones emerged. Without ongoing attention, earlier efforts lose their impact.

This is where accessibility debt builds up. Small problems add up over redesigns, framework changes, staff changes, and tight deadlines. Each issue may seem small, but together they create a growing backlog that becomes harder and more expensive to fix.

How Standards Are Becoming the Baseline, Not the Bonus

Another change is that expectations are becoming more consistent in contracts and partner requirements. Many organizations that used to follow WCAG 2.1 are now treating WCAG 2.2 as the new standard. This matters because it changes what vendors must support, how teams are measured, and what counts as “done.”

For website owners, this means accessibility is less likely to be treated as a special request and more likely to be considered a standard requirement for modern websites, especially when contracts, platforms, or enterprise stakeholders are involved.

What Accessibility as Infrastructure Looks Like in Practice

When accessibility is treated as infrastructure, it shows up upstream. It’s embedded in the acceptance criteria, not something discovered in an audit. And it’s supported by QA so issues are found in testing, not raised by users later.

Many teams are also seeing the benefits of using native HTML. Native elements have built-in features that assistive technologies handle well. By using standard controls, teams spend less time fixing bugs, patching ARIA, or maintaining custom widgets that can become difficult to manage.

Shift 2: How AI Is Changing Digital Accessibility Workflows

AI isn’t just helping teams work faster. It’s changing how websites come together in the first place. Pages are generated, components are assembled, content is drafted, and updates go live quickly, often faster than traditional review cycles can realistically support.

For most teams, the risk isn’t one bad decision. It’s how quickly small issues can spread. When accessibility problems enter the system early, they don’t stay isolated. They show up again and again across templates, campaigns, and key user paths before anyone has a chance to step in.

That’s why accessibility now feels less like a checklist and more like ongoing quality control. The work is about keeping experiences steady while everything around them keeps changing.

AI Will Build More, Developers Will Still Steer

By 2026, AI will handle much of the day-to-day building work. It will generate pages, assemble components, and draft content as part of normal production.

But in complex environments, developers aren’t going away.

Large organizations still need people who understand how systems fit together, how integrations behave, and where things tend to break. The role shifts away from writing every line by hand and toward guiding AI output, validating results, and fixing what doesn’t hold up in real use.

From a digital accessibility standpoint, this changes where risk lives. Issues are less likely to come from a single coding mistake and more likely to come from how AI systems are configured, connected, and allowed to operate at scale.

Where AI Helps and Where It Falls Short

AI is genuinely useful for work that’s difficult to manage by hand. It can surface patterns across large sites, group related issues, and turn long reports into better priorities. It can also help draft content or suggest alt text, as long as a human reviews the final result.

Where it falls short is in judging the actual experience of using a site.

Modern websites are assembled from layers. Design systems, CMS platforms, personalization tools, third-party scripts, and AI-generated elements all influence what ends up in the browser, sometimes after the underlying code has already been reviewed.

Assistive technologies interact only with what is rendered on the screen. They don’t account for intent or what the code was supposed to produce. Automated tools can catch many technical issues, but they often miss broader usability problems when the final experience becomes inconsistent or difficult to navigate with a keyboard or screen reader.

What Teams Need Before Scaling AI

Teams tend to get the most value from AI when the basics are already solid. That usually means consistent components, documented behavior, and shared expectations for what “done” really means.

It also means being prepared for last-mile issues. Some accessibility problems don’t show up until everything is live and interacting. Fixing them requires ownership of the user experience, even when the root cause sits inside a vendor tool or generated workflow.

Over time, accessibility becomes a useful signal. When AI-driven experiences fail accessibility checks, they often reveal broader quality problems, including structure, clarity, and stability, not just compliance gaps.

By 2026, digital accessibility work will sit closer to the center of how teams manage AI quality. Not as a separate initiative, but as part of how they keep digital experiences usable, reliable, and resilient.

Shift 3: Why Leadership and Culture Decide Whether Accessibility Actually Sticks

Even with strong tools and standards, progress can still stall. It often comes down to how decisions are made when priorities compete.

Where Accessibility Breaks Down Without Leadership Alignment

Most accessibility challenges do not come from a lack of awareness. They come from unresolved tradeoffs. Teams know what needs to be done, but they are unsure who has the authority to slow things down, ask for changes, or say no when something introduces risk.

If accessibility relies on individual advocates instead of shared expectations, it becomes fragile. Leadership alignment changes this. When accessibility is seen as part of quality, teams stop debating its importance and start planning how to deliver it within real constraints.

What Effective Accessibility Leadership Looks Like Day to Day

Leadership is shown more by actions than by statements. Accessibility becomes part of planning, not just a follow-up task. Teams set aside time to fix issues before release, not after problems arise. Tradeoffs are discussed openly, with accessibility considered along with performance, security, and usability.

Clear governance supports this work. Teams know who owns decisions, how issues are prioritized, and when a release needs to pause. These signals remove uncertainty and help teams move with confidence.

Why Skills and Shared Ownership Matter More Than Champions

Training matters, but not as a one-time event. Skills need reinforcement as tools and workflows change.

Designers need patterns they can reuse. Developers need reliable interaction models and accessibility testing habits. Content teams need guidance that fits fast publishing cycles. Product and project leaders need support prioritizing accessibility work early, not after problems surface.

As these skills become more common, digital accessibility is no longer just for specialists. It becomes part of how everyone on the team works together.

How Culture Shapes Accessibility Outcomes Over Time

Culture is what remains when tools change, and people move on. It shows up in whether accessibility issues are treated like real bugs, whether reviews include keyboard and focus checks, and whether success is measured by task completion instead of surface-level scores.

This shift toward focusing on real outcomes is becoming more common. Teams are now looking at whether users can complete important actions easily, not just if a scan passes.

In 2026, organizations that keep making progress are those where leadership supports accessibility, teams share the right skills, and everyday decisions reflect these values.

Turning These Shifts Into a Strategy That Holds Up

These changes build on each other. Treating digital accessibility as infrastructure makes it more stable. Using AI helps teams move faster without losing control. When leadership and culture support the effort, progress continues even as priorities change.

A practical approach for 2026 does not mean fixing everything at once. It means being consistent. Start by making sure ownership and standards are in place. Then add accessibility to the workflows teams already use, like design systems, development reviews, content publishing, and QA. Once these habits are set, scaling is about preventing backsliding, not starting over each time.

Looking Ahead to Accessibility in 2026

Accessibility has always been about people. It is about whether someone can complete a task, understand information, or participate fully in a digital experience without unnecessary barriers. As digital environments continue to evolve through 2026, with faster release cycles and broader use of AI, having a steady strategy becomes less about reacting and more about staying aligned.

The teams that move forward with confidence are the ones that treat digital accessibility as part of how their digital work functions every day.

At 216digital, we can help develop a strategy to integrate WCAG 2.1 compliance into your development roadmap on your terms. To learn more about how our experts can help you confidently create and maintain an accessible website that meets both your business goals and the needs of your users, schedule a complimentary ADA Strategy Briefing today.

Greg McNeil

January 7, 2026

Web Accessibility Remediation

2026, AI-driven accessibility, Small Business, Web Accessibility, web development, Website Accessibility
WCAG Level A Is the Floor, Not the Finish Line
A question comes up on almost every digital team at some point: “Is our site accessible?”

The answer is often a hesitant, “We think so.” That pause tells you a lot.

Accessibility often breaks down behind the scenes. When it’s missing, the gaps aren’t always obvious. A site can look great but still block people with disabilities from basic tasks, like filling out a form or using a menu. These issues may go unnoticed by sighted mouse users, creating false confidence.

WCAG Level A marks the point at which those hidden gaps become visible. It sets the minimum conditions a website must meet to be functionally usable by people with disabilities, well before higher standards come into play. When those conditions are missing, even well-intended experiences can fall apart.

We will take a closer look at what WCAG Level A covers, the barriers teams often miss, and how teams can start building accessibility best practices into lasting changes.

A Quick Refresher on WCAG and the Three Levels

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a set of technical standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). They are based on established accessibility principles and how people with disabilities use digital products.

WCAG defines three levels of conformance.
- Level A is the baseline. It addresses the most critical barriers that prevent people with disabilities from using a site at all.
- Level AA builds on that foundation and is the most common target for web accessibility compliance. It introduces requirements that improve clarity, consistency, and overall usability across experiences.
- Level AAA is used selectively, with teams applying it to specific content or features rather than to an entire website.
Some organizations write off Level A as “bare minimum,” yet it sets the groundwork that enables meaningful access from the start. Without it, screen reader users miss essential information, keyboard users cannot complete core tasks, and people with cognitive or seizure-related disabilities face real risk. Every credible WCAG compliance effort relies on teams putting this foundation in place.

The Four Principles of WCAG

WCAG organizes its guidance around four principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. At this level, each principle speaks to its core purpose—determining whether people can access the content in the first place.

Perceivable

Perceivable requirements ensure that essential information is available in at least one usable form. Content cannot rely solely on vision or hearing.

For example, an image used as a submit button must have text that identifies its purpose. Without an accessible name, a screen reader user may encounter the control but have no way to know what it does.

Operable

Operable requirements focus on whether users can interact with the interface using basic input methods, including a keyboard.

A common failure is a navigation menu that works with a mouse but cannot be accessed or exited using a keyboard. When this happens, users may be unable to reach large portions of the site.

Understandable

Understandable requirements address whether controls and interactions behave in predictable ways.

For instance, a form submit button that unexpectedly opens a new window can disorient users, particularly those relying on assistive technology, by disrupting their sense of location and task flow.

Robust

Robust requirements cover whether the underlying code communicates structure and purpose in a way that assistive technology can interpret reliably.

A typical issue is a custom button built from a generic element that lacks an exposed role or name. Visually, it may function as intended, but assistive technology cannot recognize or announce it as an interactive control.

Together, these requirements form the backbone of WCAG. They are about doing the fundamentals well and doing them consistently.

Why WCAG Level A Is Not Optional

Level A failures are not subtle. They prevent use entirely. A job application cannot be submitted because form fields lack labels. A navigation menu only responds to hover. A modal traps focus with no clear way out. In each case, the experience does not degrade—it stops.

The impact is immediate. Users are blocked, tasks are abandoned, and opportunities are lost. These are not edge cases or rare scenarios. They are common patterns that surface whenever foundational accessibility is missing.

Accessibility complaints often arise from these same breakdowns. Regulators may reference Level AA, but users typically report Level A failures because they cannot complete essential actions. When users lose access at this level, the compliance risk escalates quickly.

The same failures appear in analytics and support queues. Abandoned carts, failed logins, repeated help requests—signals of friction that affect far more than assistive technology users. Addressing these barriers improves usability broadly, not incidentally.

Technically, the cost of ignoring WCAG Level A grows over time. When foundational components are inaccessible, every feature built on top inherits the same limitations. Fixing the system once is more durable than correcting the same issue across dozens of pages later.

Level A is not a stepping stone to be revisited. It is the structural layer that everything else depends on.

Common WCAG Level A Failures Teams Miss

Level A failures are not edge cases. They show up in everyday templates and long-standing components—the ones teams trust because they have shipped for years. That familiarity is exactly why they keep flying under the radar.

Alt Text That Breaks Meaning

Alt text problems are still among the most frequent Level A misses. Sometimes it is missing entirely. Other times, it is present but unhelpful—either adding noise or failing to convey what the image is doing on the page. The result is the same: essential context is lost.

Forms Users Cannot Complete

Forms reveal WCAG Level A gaps immediately. Unclear or unconnected labels, visual-only instructions, and error messages that assistive technology cannot reliably interpret all come from choices teams make during implementation. When those choices break the form, the user loses more than convenience—they lose the task.

Keyboard Interaction That Is Assumed

Keyboard access is often treated as implied rather than verified. Interactive components work on click, but do not behave correctly with Tab, Enter, arrow keys, or focus. When focus is missing or trapped, the experience stops being difficult and starts being unusable.

Behavior That Changes Without Warning

Unexpected context changes—new tabs, automatic actions, sudden focus shifts—create confusion and increase failure rates, especially for users relying on assistive technology or predictable navigation patterns.

Because these failures stem from foundational components, solving them is not a detail or afterthought—it is the main act of accessibility. Closing these gaps is where accessibility starts, and credibility is built.

How to See Where You Stand Today

Start with core user flows rather than isolated pages. Login, checkout, account creation, and contact forms are where accessibility shifts from principle to outcome. If these paths fail, the experience fails, regardless of how polished individual pages may appear.

From there, automated tools can help surface clear, repeatable issues such as missing alternative text or improper form labeling. These tools are useful for identifying patterns, but they capture only a portion of the accessibility barriers.

Manual evaluation covers the remaining gaps. Spend a few minutes moving through the page using only a keyboard. Then run a screen reader yourself and listen closely to how it announces headings, links, buttons, and form fields.

When you spot a problem, write it up in a way that helps teams act on it—location, element, and what the user would encounter. Group similar items together and flag barriers that carry the most weight. It keeps the backlog readable and the decisions straightforward.

A Practical Path to WCAG Level A, and Staying There

Start by fixing barriers that completely block access. Address forms that won’t submit, buttons that won’t activate, and keyboard traps first.

Momentum builds when teams stop treating issues as isolated defects and start addressing the underlying patterns that cause them.

Address Issues at the Pattern Level

Design systems and component libraries should make accessible buttons, forms, and navigation the default, not the exception.

Give Teams Clear Guidance

Content creators need direction on headings and alternative text. Designers need to plan interactions that work without a mouse. Developers should rely on semantic HTML and apply ARIA only when necessary.

Build Accessibility Into Daily Workflows

Keyboard-only checks during QA and brief screen reader testing during reviews help prevent regressions as sites evolve.

Revisit Regularly

Accessibility is ongoing, especially as content and features change. Use continuous scanning and reporting to help maintain compliance and stay ahead of risks.

Building a Confident Accessibility Foundation

WCAG Level A is where accessibility moves from assumption to certainty. It addresses the barriers that stop people cold and replaces them with a foundation that teams can actually build on. The work is focused, the outcomes are clear, and progress is far more attainable than it is often made out to be.

This level rewards steady attention rather than sweeping overhauls. When teams start with the flows that matter most and fix what prevents completion, accessibility begins to hold. Those early corrections shape better components, stronger patterns, and fewer regressions as sites evolve.

At 216digital, we can help develop a strategy to integrate WCAG 2.1 compliance into your development roadmap on your terms. To learn more about how our experts can help you confidently create and maintain an accessible website that supports both your business goals and the people who rely on it, schedule a complementary ADA Strategy Briefing.
Greg McNeil

December 29, 2025

WCAG Compliance

Accessibility, Level A, WCAG, WCAG 2.1, WCAG Compliance, WCAG conformance, Web Accessibility, Website Accessibility
Making Web Accessibility a “Must Do,” Not a “Should Do”
Most teams do not ignore web accessibility. In fact, many agree it matters. It comes up in planning meetings. Someone flags it during backlog management. There is real intent behind the conversation.

But as the sprint fills up and deadlines stay firm, accessibility often gets pushed to a later date.

This isn’t about a lack of concern or values. It’s a result of how teams deliver work. When digital accessibility isn’t part of daily planning, building, and review, it gets treated as optional, even if everyone agrees it matters. Anything seen as “extra” has to compete with deadlines, staffing, and budgets, so it often gets sidelined.

Accessibility becomes non-negotiable only when it is handled the same way as quality. Not as a special initiative. Not as a periodic clean-up. But as a built-in part of how a website is designed, developed, tested, and maintained—every release, every sprint, every time.

Why Web Accessibility Still Gets Pushed Back

Digital teams are used to jumping on problems that cause obvious issues. If a site goes down, revenue drops. A security problem puts the business at risk. A broken checkout shows up almost immediately in the data. Those situations force action because the consequences are hard to miss.

Accessibility doesn’t work like that. There are rarely moments that demand attention, so it’s easy for them to slip into the “we’ll get to it” category. And because it is often framed as serving a smaller group, it can get pushed aside in favor of work tied to short-term KPIs. That framing is also inaccurate. CDC data shows more than 1 in 4 adults in the United States, about 28.7%, report having a disability. The World Health Organization estimates 1.3 billion people worldwide experience significant disability.

Many Barriers End in Abandonment

A keyboard user tries to open a menu but can’t without a mouse. A screen reader user finds a button with no name. A customer turns on captions for a product video, but they’re missing, so the details are lost.

Most of these users don’t report the problem. They just leave.

That’s why accessibility is hard to prioritize. The impact doesn’t show up as a big failure. Instead, it looks like a session that ends early, a form that’s never submitted, or a customer who doesn’t return.

From the team’s point of view, nothing seems broken. There’s no error alert or support ticket. Without seeing where someone got stuck, these moments blend into the background and are often mistaken for minor issues instead of real barriers.

“Make It Accessible” Is Not a Plan

Accessibility often stalls not because teams think it’s unimportant, but because there’s no clear agreement on what “done” means or who is responsible.

When teams get a vague instruction like “make it accessible,” it’s open to interpretation. Some think it means a full redesign, while others believe a quick automated scan is enough. Without a clear, shared definition, the work either grows too big for the sprint or gets put off.

At the same time, accessibility rarely belongs to a single role. Designers shape visual clarity and interaction patterns. Engineers handle structure, semantics, and keyboard use. Content teams shape meaning and flow. QA checks what gets validated. Legal and procurement may focus on ADA website compliance and risk exposure. When responsibility is spread without coordination, urgency fades.

Progress begins when teams agree on a clear definition of what needs to work and make sure responsibility is visible so it doesn’t get lost.

What Waiting Costs

Putting off accessibility might seem easier because it saves work now, but the cost grows over time. If accessibility isn’t built in, new features can repeat the same mistakes.

This is also where teams get caught off guard by scope. Small issues don’t stay small when they repeat. A missing focus style isn’t just one bug—it shows up across buttons, menus, and modals. If teams use different form label approaches, users get inconsistent experiences and more drop-offs. When a design system has low contrast or unclear states, every new feature inherits those problems.

Support Load and Operational Friction Add Up

Inaccessible experiences cause repeated problems. People can’t submit forms, open modals, or finish purchases. Each time, someone has to help, or the customer leaves.

Either way, the cost keeps coming back until the main problem is fixed. Usually, it’s a small set of recurring issues. WebAIM’s 2024 report shows these patterns are common on home pages: missing form input labels (48.6%), empty links (44.6%), and empty buttons (28.2%). These are not abstract WCAG compliance concerns. They interrupt basic tasks and create friction that never fully goes away until the underlying pattern is fixed.

Brand Trust Erodes in Subtle Ways

When a site excludes people, the message is clear: you weren’t considered. That’s hard to accept with today’s expectations for inclusion, service, and care.

Research like the UK ‘Click-Away Pound findings suggests many shoppers with access needs will leave when a site is difficult to use.

Even for organizations that are not values-led on the surface, trust still matters. It affects retention, referrals, and how people talk about you when you are not in the room.

Teams Burn Out on “Not Yet”

Many organizations have people who champion accessibility. They write tickets, share resources, and speak up in reviews. But when their efforts keep getting delayed, motivation drops.

Over time, this effort becomes exhausting. You might lose the people who care most, or keep them but risk burning them out. When that happens, it’s harder to restart web accessibility work because you lose momentum and context.

Pressure Creates Rushed Work

Legal risk is always present, and teams are aware of it. In 2024, UsableNet reported over 4,000 ADA lawsuits related to digital properties. Even when a complaint comes in, organizations still feel pressure to fix accessibility after the fact. Reactive remediation leads to rushed fixes and recurring problems because there’s no system to prevent the same issues from recurring.

Reframing Web Accessibility as a Shipping Standard

Making accessibility a shipping standard changes the conversation. It replaces vague intentions with clear steps: what needs to work, how teams check it, and how progress is kept up as the product grows.

This doesn’t mean you have to do everything at once. It means starting with practical steps, prioritizing based on real user impact, and building a workflow that fits your usual process. That way, web accessibility becomes part of the roadmap instead of competing with it.

A Practical Path That Makes Progress Visible (Without Blowing Up Scope)

Start With Critical Journeys, Not “The Whole Site”

One reason accessibility efforts stall is confusion about scope. “Make the site accessible” can sound like a total rebuild, so teams either over-plan or don’t start at all.

Instead, start with a few key user journeys that carry the most risk—those that drive revenue, support, or important tasks. For most organizations, these include:
- Site navigation and global layout
- Search and filtering
- Account creation and login
- Checkout or lead forms
- Support and onboarding workflows
The goal isn’t to audit everything at once. It’s to make sure those journeys work with a keyboard and assistive technology, then remove any barriers that stop users from finishing tasks.

Turn Findings Into a Short Priority List Teams Can Act On

Automated tools help catch common issues and prevent regressions, but a raw report isn’t a plan. A scan just signals where to look.

A plan is a short list of issues tied to user impact in the journeys you chose. For example:
- A filter toggle with no accessible name slows or blocks product discovery.
- A modal that traps focus breaks flow and can strand users mid-checkout.
- A form error that is not announced turns submission into guesswork.
When findings are framed as “what breaks the task,” teams can prioritize them the same way they would any product defect: what blocks completion gets fixed first.

Create a Leadership Snapshot So the Work Stays Funded

Web accessibility is easier to support when it’s concrete. A one-page summary that shows:
- The top blockers in each critical journey
- Impact (who it blocks and where)
- Effort (quick fix vs. component refactor)
- The handful of component-level changes that remove repeated failures
…gives leaders something they can schedule and staff. It changes the conversation from “we should” to “we can.”

Fix Patterns, Not Pages

Momentum builds when you fix shared components and templates, since one improvement appears everywhere. High-impact targets usually include:
- Modals, drawers, menus, and focus behavior
- Form inputs, labels, errors, and validation patterns
- Buttons, links, and interactive controls with missing/unclear names
- Contrast failures on primary actions and key UI states
This is how accessibility debt shrinks quickly: fix a form component once, and you reduce friction across checkout, registration, support, and lead generation.

Define a Release Floor That Fits Normal Delivery

A release floor keeps web accessibility from slipping back into the backlog after a big push. It also gives teams a shared definition of “done” for new UI, without making it an endless checklist.

A practical release floor is short and repeatable:
- Core flows are keyboard navigable and have visible focus.
- Forms have labels and usable error recovery (not just red text).
- Interactive components have accessible names, roles, and predictable behavior.
- New videos include captions.
- Key actions meet contrast requirements.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s to stop avoidable barriers from reaching production.

A 90-Day Path That Builds Momentum Without Burnout

Days 1–30: Baseline the Journeys That Matter

Test the key journeys using keyboard navigation and a screen reader for important areas such as forms, navigation, and checkout. Use automation to find repeated issues, but focus on what affects tasks most. List the shared components that are involved.

Also, assign someone to own the release floor and component fixes. Without a clear owner, issues tend to drift.

Days 31–60: Remediate the Highest-Impact Components

Focus on shared components that cause repeated problems, like dialogs, menus, form patterns, error messages, focus management, and key contrast areas. This is the quickest way to make real progress without increasing scope.

Days 61–90: Add Guardrails So Progress Sticks

Make it harder for regressions to slip through by adding simple QA checks on key flows, setting accessibility expectations in code reviews, and monitoring for new issues early. This is how accessibility becomes a regular practice.

From “Someday” to “Starting Now”

If web accessibility has been in your backlog for years, you don’t need a huge overhaul to start. Pick one important journey, find the main blockers, fix those components and templates, and set a release floor so the same issues don’t come back next sprint.

That’s how accessibility stops being a push and becomes part of the way teams deliver.

If your team needs support defining scope, prioritizing risk, and building a process that holds up over time, 216digital helps organizations run targeted evaluations, remediate at the component level, and maintain progress through ongoing monitoring and guidance.

To learn more about how the ADA experts at 216digital can help build an ADA WCAG 2.1 compliance strategy to achieve ongoing, real-world accessibility on your terms, schedule an ADA Strategy Briefing.
Greg McNeil

December 24, 2025

Web Accessibility Remediation

Accessibility, ADA Website Compliance, Benefits of Web Accessibility, business case for web accessibility, Small Business, Web Accessibility, Website Accessibility
Do You Really Need a VPAT? Here’s the Truth
It often starts the same way. A deal is moving. The product demo went well. Everyone feels good. Then procurement steps in and asks for one document, and the tone shifts.

“Can you send your VPAT?”

Now the sales thread pauses. Someone forwards the request to engineering. Someone else pulls up a template they have never seen before. A smart team that knows accessibility basics still feels stuck, because nobody seems able to answer the question behind the question.

Here is the tension most teams run into. Legally, that document is not always required. Practically, the market can act like it is. And that pressure can lead to rushed paperwork that helps no one.

So let’s answer the thing people avoid saying clearly. You do not need this document just because someone asked for it. You need it when it serves a real purpose in how your product is bought, reviewed, and trusted. We will walk through how to tell the difference, and how to handle accessibility documentation with confidence.

VPAT and ACR, Untangled

First, some quick clarity, because the terms get mixed up constantly.

The Voluntary Product Accessibility Template is the blank form. The Accessibility Conformance Report is the completed report that comes out of it. Procurement teams often ask for “the template” when they mean the finished report. Vendors often say “report” when they mean the template. Everyone nods anyway, and confusion grows.

The word voluntary matters, too. This is not a certification. There is no official stamp. No agency signs off. It is your organization describing how your product supports accessibility standards such as WCAG, Section 508, or EN 301 549.

A strong report does three things well.
- Reviewers address each criterion line by line, so they have exactly what they need without guesswork.
- Teams apply support levels accurately, using “Supports,” “Partially Supports,” and “Does Not Support” as intended.
- Evaluators describe user impact clearly in the remarks, where the real credibility of the evaluation comes through.
What it should not do is pretend to be a legal shield. It is also not a glossy sales brochure. And it is not something you can publish once and forget, because products change. Accessibility changes with them.

When a VPAT Is Expected

There are a few places where accessibility documentation shifts from “nice to have” to “we cannot move forward without it.”

Selling to U.S. federal agencies is the clearest example. Section 508 procurement relies on accessibility conformance reporting as part of how agencies evaluate information and communication technology. Some state and local government contracts mirror that approach, even when the rules are not written the same way.

Higher education adds its own pressure. Many universities enforce procurement policies that require digital accessibility. Their teams actively request documentation from vendors, and internal reviewers know exactly what to check and how to evaluate it.

Large enterprises can be just as strict. Accessibility is frequently bundled into vendor due diligence alongside security, privacy, and compliance. In that environment, the question is less “Do we believe you care about accessibility?” and more “Can we document what we are buying and what the risk looks like?”

This is also where the market has matured. A decade ago, some buyers accepted any report that looked official. Today, many teams have seen too many vague statements and too many copy-pasted claims. Stakeholders expect details, supported testing, and remarks grounded in real behavior.

This is why a VPAT request can feel so urgent. It is not always about the law. It is often about procurement habits and risk management.

The Risk of Treating Documentation Like a Formality

When teams feel rushed, the instinct is to make the report look clean. That is when trouble starts.

A report that marks “Supports” across the board looks impressive at a glance, but it often raises questions for anyone experienced. Most real products have some partial support, even if the overall experience is strong. A perfect-looking report can read as unrealistic.

Overclaiming is where risk grows. If your report says keyboard navigation is supported, but users cannot reach core controls without a mouse, you are not just shipping a bug—you are undermining credibility. When buyers spot the mismatch, they start questioning every accessibility claim you make. When users hit it firsthand, they feel misled, not merely inconvenienced.

There is also an internal cost. Teams that feel pressure to look perfect tend to hide gaps. That keeps issues out of the backlog and out of planning. It also blocks the thing procurement teams truly need, which is a clear view of limitations.

An honest report can be imperfect and still be strong. “Partially Supports” paired with clear remarks is often safer, more useful, and more believable than a wall of “Supports.”

VPAT Myths That Waste Time and Energy

A few misconceptions show up so often that they are worth calling out directly.

One myth is that if you do not have the document, you must not be compliant. Documentation and accessibility progress are connected, but they are not the same thing. You can have a report and still have serious barriers. You can be doing thoughtful accessibility work without having a formal report yet.

Another myth is that anything less than full support is a failure. Partial support is normal, especially for complex interfaces, legacy code, or products with many integrations. Standards are detailed, and not every criterion applies in the same way to every feature.

A third myth is that once the report is done, you are set for years. Products evolve. Design systems change. Third-party tools update. Browsers and assistive technologies shift. A report that is never revisited becomes stale fast.

There is also the perfection trap. Some teams believe they must fix every issue before sharing anything. That can delay deals and delay transparency. In many cases, buyers would rather see an honest picture today with a clear improvement plan than wait for a “perfect” report that arrives too late.

And finally, there is the belief that a developer can fill the template out in an afternoon. Reliable reporting comes from structured evaluation, including assistive technology testing, review of key user flows, and input from multiple roles.

How to Decide If a VPAT Makes Sense for Your Organization

If you are trying to decide what to do next, start with your business reality.

Look at who you sell to today and who you plan to sell to in the next 6 to 12 months. If government, higher education, or enterprise procurement is a real part of your pipeline, documentation may be worth prioritizing.

Next, look at your current accessibility posture. Have you done a recent audit or structured assessment? Do you already know about critical barriers that would make your report read like wishful thinking? If so, you may need to remediate first, or scope the report carefully so it reflects what is true now.

Then separate legal pressure from sales pressure. Legal risk depends on your users and product context. Sales pressure is easier to see. Are deals stalling because your buyer needs documentation for their process?

After that, decide on timing and scope. If an RFP is imminent, you may need the report sooner, even if it is not perfect. If you are not facing procurement demands yet, you may get more value from strengthening accessibility foundations and preparing your internal process first.

The simplest summary is this. If you are consistently being asked for a VPAT in active deals, it is probably time to treat it as a business asset, not a last-minute chore.

How to Make the Document Useful, Even When It Is Not Perfect

The remarks section is where most reports either earn trust or lose it. Generic statements like “Supported” without context do not help reviewers. Clear, specific remarks do.

Anchor your evaluation to real user journeys. Focus on the flows buyers care about, like account setup, checkout, form completion, and core product tasks. Report what works well and where friction still exists.

Be direct about limitations and workarounds when they exist. State the gap when a feature has known limitations. Document any available alternative paths. Outline planned remediation with clear, measured intent.Avoid promises you cannot guarantee.

Tie the report to an accessibility roadmap when possible. Procurement teams respond well to maturity. They want to know you understand your gaps and have a plan to address them.

Also, prepare the people who will share it. Sales, support, and account managers should understand what the report actually says. Nothing undermines trust faster than a confident verbal promise that contradicts the written document.

So, Do You Really Need a VPAT, and Where 216digital Fits

“Others strengthen their accessibility practices first and build documentation once their sales channels make it necessary.

The healthiest mindset is simple. Honest reporting beats perfect-looking reporting. A clear, user-centered document supports better procurement decisions and helps teams focus on meaningful improvements.

At 216digital, we help teams evaluate accessibility in ways that map to real user journeys and WCAG criteria, translate findings into accurate conformance reporting that buyers can trust, and build workflows so documentation stays current as your product evolves.

If you are unsure whether this is a “now” need or a “later” need, we can help you sort that out without pressure. Sometimes the right next step is a VPAT. Sometimes it is an assessment and a plan. Either way, the goal is the same: to communicate accessibility with clarity and to keep improving the experience for the people who rely on it.
Greg McNeil

December 23, 2025

Web Accessibility Remediation

Accessibility, Accessibility Remediation, Accessibility testing, VPAT, Web Accessibility, Website Accessibility
How to Pick the Best Dyslexia-Friendly Fonts

Most people expect reading online to be quick and easy. For many users, it is not. A line gets reread. Letters feel too close together. A full page of text feels like work rather than information.

That experience is common for people with dyslexia, and it shows up across everyday web tasks. Dyslexia affects how written language is processed, not how capable someone is. And since the web still relies heavily on text, from forms and dashboards to product pages and help centers, typography carries more influence than teams often realize. However, while typography cannot remove dyslexia, design choices around text can significantly reduce effort and improve how easily users navigate written content.

This article covers what dyslexia can look like in digital reading, what we do and do not know about dyslexia-friendly fonts, and how to make typography choices that improve readability without breaking brand consistency.

Dyslexia and Digital Reading: What’s Actually Going On?

Dyslexia is a language-based neurological difference. It affects how the brain decodes written language, including sequencing and the connection between sounds and symbols. It is not tied to intelligence, effort, or motivation. Many people with dyslexia are strong problem-solvers and strategic thinkers; they simply expend more mental energy to get through text that others process automatically.

This experience is far from rare. According to the International Dyslexia Association, an estimated 15–20% of the population shows some symptoms of dyslexia. These can include slow or inaccurate reading, spelling difficulties, challenges with written expression, or mixing up similar letters and words. For most websites, that represents a meaningful portion of everyday users.

For those with dyslexia, certain reading challenges often appear. Similar letters like b and d, or p and q, can be difficult to distinguish. Readers may lose their place in a paragraph when lines are tightly spaced or visually crowded. Characters such as O and 0, or l and I, can blur together. Over time, these small frictions accumulate and lead to fatigue, frustration, or disengagement.

Digital interfaces can increase these challenges. Small font sizes, tight line spacing, low contrast, and dense layouts increase cognitive load. Responsive designs can further compress text on smaller screens, making tracking even harder. Typography cannot change how dyslexia works, but it can either add to the effort required to read or strip away barriers that make reading harder than it needs to be.

What We Already Know About “Dyslexia-Friendly” Fonts

There is no single typeface that works for every person with dyslexia. Research has not identified a universally effective dyslexic font that consistently improves reading speed or accuracy. What does come through, however, is that some fonts feel less tiring and easier to stay with, especially during longer reading sessions.

That distinction is important. Dyslexia varies from person to person, and even modest improvements in comfort can affect whether someone completes a form, follows instructions, or keeps reading. For design and development teams, the goal is not to find the “right” font. It is to reduce friction wherever possible.

This is reflected in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The guidelines do not require dyslexia-specific fonts. Instead, they focus on spacing, contrast, structure, and consistency. These factors create a more stable reading environment that often supports dyslexic users while improving usability for many others. Fonts are most effective when they are considered as part of that broader system, not treated as a standalone solution.

How WCAG Supports Dyslexic Readers in Practice

WCAG does not include criteria written specifically for dyslexia, and that is intentional. Instead of prescribing solutions, it sets expectations for how text should behave across different contexts and user needs. Those expectations shape readability, reduce cognitive strain, and create more stable reading environments. For people with dyslexia and other learning differences, that stability is often the difference between staying engaged and giving up.

Several WCAG criteria influence the reading experience in ways teams directly control.

Text Spacing (1.4.12)

WCAG requires that line height, letter spacing, and paragraph spacing can be increased without breaking layouts. When spacing is flexible, text becomes easier to track and less visually demanding, especially during longer interactions.

Contrast (Minimum) (1.4.3)

Sufficient contrast between text and background keeps characters distinct. Poor contrast slows recognition and increases effort, turning simple reading tasks into work.

Resize Text (1.4.4)

Text must scale without loss of content or functionality. This allows readers to increase the size without relying on browser zoom or assistive tools, reducing strain and preserving layout integrity.

Info and Relationships (1.3.1)

Content structure must be communicated through proper headings, lists, and semantic markup. A clear hierarchy supports orientation, helping readers understand where they are and how information is organized.

Use of Color (1.4.1)

Color cannot be the only way meaning is conveyed. Removing color-only cues reduces the risk of missed information and improves clarity across different visual and cognitive needs.

Reading Level (3.1.5)

When content is complex, WCAG encourages clearer wording or alternatives. This reduces cognitive load and helps more users understand content without extra effort.

Taken together, these criteria explain why font choice alone is not a solution. WCAG focuses on the conditions that allow typography to work: spacing, contrast, scaling, and structure. While it does not require a dyslexia-friendly font, it gives teams a framework for making type and layout decisions that support dyslexic readers as part of broader cognitive accessibility—without forcing a redesign or abandoning brand standards.

Core Characteristics of Dyslexia-Friendly Typography

When teams talk about dyslexia-friendly typography, it is easy to jump straight to font names. In practice, the bigger wins usually come from agreeing on the characteristics that make text easier to read—regardless of which typeface ends up in use. That shared understanding gives teams flexibility without reopening the same conversation every time.

Clear letterforms matter more than personality.

Sans-serif fonts tend to work well because they avoid decorative details that compete with the letter shapes themselves. When letters are clean and clearly formed, common look-alikes are easier to tell apart, especially during scanning or longer reads.

Open shapes help readers move faster.

Letters like c, e, and a benefit from open apertures rather than tight, closed forms. A slightly taller x-height also helps text hold up at everyday body sizes, particularly on mobile, where space is limited and zooming is not always practical.

Steady stroke weight reduces effort.

Typefaces with extreme thin-to-thick transitions can lose clarity depending on screen quality, lighting, or contrast. More even stroke weights tend to feel calmer and easier to read across devices.

Spacing often does the heavy lifting.

Letter spacing keeps characters from blurring together. Word spacing creates separation without breaking reading rhythm. Line spacing makes it easier to keep place from one line to the next. In many cases, adjusting spacing improves readability more than introducing a specialized dyslexia font.

Examples of Dyslexia-Friendly Fonts and How to Use Them Wisely

Many commonly available fonts already work well for dyslexic readers. Fonts such as Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, Open Sans, Roboto, Inter, Nunito Sans, and Atkinson Hyperlegible share familiar traits: open shapes, minimal ornamentation, and consistent spacing. The most useful way to evaluate them is not in isolation, but in real layouts—body text, forms, error messages—across the devices people actually use.

Purpose-built dyslexia fonts can also play a role, especially in reading-heavy experiences. These fonts often exaggerate differences between similar letters or add visual weight to anchor characters more clearly. They tend to work best as an optional setting or reading mode, rather than a default that reshapes an entire brand.

However, brand considerations still apply. Brand typefaces are often designed to make an impression, not to carry long instructions or dense content. A common, practical approach is to reserve branded fonts for headlines and short marketing moments, and rely on a more readable body font for functional text. When teams have clear rules for when readability takes priority, accessibility stops being a debate and starts becoming part of normal design decisions—including when offering a dyslexia-friendly font option makes sense.

Layout Choices That Affect Reading Stability

Fonts do not operate in isolation. Size, spacing, and structure determine whether text feels steady to read or slowly becomes harder to stay with.

Body text needs room to breathe. If text is too small, too tight, or too wide, readers are more likely to lose their place or tire more quickly. The goal is not precision, but resilience—text that remains readable as pages get denser or screens get smaller.

Spacing needs to hold up when users change it. Many people adjust letter spacing, word spacing, or zoom to reduce strain. When layouts cannot absorb those changes, readability drops even if the font itself is well chosen.

Alignment and structure also shape how text is tracked. Left-aligned body copy provides a consistent starting edge. Distinct headings and shorter paragraphs make it easier to re-orient without rereading. These choices reduce effort, especially on longer pages.

Taken together, these layout decisions often have more impact than changing fonts. When layout and spacing are stable, typography has room to do its job—even when font choices stay the same.

Making Dyslexia-Friendly Typography Part of the System

Typography becomes more reliable when it’s built into the system instead of handled one screen at a time. When font choices, spacing ranges, and basic text behaviors live inside a design system, teams avoid one-off fixes, and the reading experience stays more stable across forms, tables, cards, and other recurring components.

Engineering patterns help carry that consistency forward. Shared tokens or variables keep typography decisions from drifting. When sizing and spacing scale cleanly across breakpoints, browser zoom, and user overrides, layouts hold together even as conditions change.

Content follows the same logic. Clear writing and predictable structure support the same readers who rely on steady typography. When content and typography are reviewed together, teams have a better chance of producing patterns that hold up across the full product, not just on the surface.

Letting Users Personalize the Reading Experience

No single typography setup works for everyone, and many people adjust text in ways that make reading easier for them. When interfaces allow changes to size, spacing, or contrast—and stay stable when those changes happen—the experience tends to hold up better across long sessions and dense content.

Many users already bring their own tools. Extensions like OpenDyslexic let people restyle text across the web, adjusting letterforms and spacing to reduce strain. This does not replace the need for accessible typography, but it does remind teams that personalization is already happening. The priority is ensuring the interface still works when text looks different from the default.

Real feedback helps shape those decisions. Observing how dyslexic readers move through content often reveals patterns that automated checks miss—where fatigue sets in, where tracking becomes harder, or where spacing changes make a noticeable difference. Small variations in typography or layout can shift how comfortably people reach the end of a task.

These decisions evolve over time. As design systems grow or brands change direction, typography may need to be revisited. Input from users, support teams, and real usage patterns can highlight where reading is still harder than it needs to be, even when everything appears to meet the standard on paper.

Fonts as One Powerful Piece of a Larger Accessibility Story

Typography will not remove dyslexia, but it can change how hard people have to work to stay with your content. There is no single font that solves this for everyone, and most teams do not need to rethink their brand to make progress. When font choices, spacing, and structure are handled with care, reading becomes less about getting through the page and more about staying engaged with it.

At 216digital, we treat accessibility as part of how a site is built and maintained—not a separate layer added at the end. Typography, layout, interaction patterns, and content all influence how well people can move through your site, and they work best when they’re considered together.

If you want support aligning those decisions with WCAG 2.1 and your long-term roadmap, our team is here to help. Schedule a complementary ADA Strategy Briefing to talk through your goals and learn what it takes to create and maintain an accessible experience that stands up under real use.

Greg McNeil

December 22, 2025

How-to Guides

Accessibility, cognitive disabilities, dyslexia, typography, Web Accessibility, Website Accessibility
Web Accessibility Tools Worth Using in 2025

Web accessibility tools are becoming part of everyday work for many teams. Scanners run in the background, browser extensions sit ready during reviews, and screen readers are easier than ever to test with. The challenge is rarely whether to use these tools, but how to understand the results they produce. Some findings point to genuine barriers that can frustrate users. Others are technical alerts that look urgent but may have little impact on real interaction.

Teams that use these tools effectively tend to treat them as different viewpoints on the same experience. Automated checks help reveal patterns. Screen readers and mobile readers show how people move through a page. Design and document tools shape the foundation long before anything reaches production. When each tool has a clear purpose, accessibility work feels more manageable and less like a moving target.

What often helps is stepping back and looking at what these tools can actually tell you and what they cannot. That perspective makes it easier to choose the right mix, set realistic expectations, and build a workflow that supports long-term accessibility rather than one-off fixes.

Understanding the Role of Web Accessibility Tools

Accessibility tools tend to fall into a few core roles.

Some focus on evaluation and diagnostics. These scan pages or whole sites for common Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) issues, such as missing labels, low contrast, or heading structure problems. They are good at catching patterns and basic rules that lend themselves to automation.

Others focus on assistive technology behavior. They help teams understand how a screen reader, keyboard navigation, or mobile reader interprets the page. These tools are closer to how people use the site in everyday life.

Another group lives mainly in the design space. Contrast checkers and visual tools help refine palettes, typography, and layout while work is still in Figma, Sketch, or Adobe apps. Catching issues early often prevents expensive redesigns later.

Finally, there are document and PDF tools. As organizations publish reports, forms, and guides, document accessibility has become much more important. These tools help repair structure, order, and tagging so content is usable outside the browser.

There are limits, though. Automated tools miss subtle issues like confusing focus order, unclear instructions, or complex widget behavior. They cannot judge whether an interaction feels intuitive or whether a flow is simply exhausting to complete. Tools strengthen the workflow, but they do not replace thoughtful human evaluation or usability feedback from people with disabilities.

With that in mind, let’s look at the tools that are shaping accessibility practice in 2025.

A General Accessibility Evaluation Tool Where Most Teams Start

Lighthouse

Lighthouse remains a standard starting point for many teams. It is built into Chrome, free to use, and easy to run during development. A quick Lighthouse report gives you an accessibility score and a list of issues that can guide your next steps.

Where Lighthouse helps most is prioritization. The report maps findings back to WCAG criteria and includes clear suggestions that point developers toward specific changes. It is especially useful for early checks on new features, quick reviews before a deploy, and tracking whether your accessibility score improves over time.

There are tradeoffs. Because Lighthouse runs entirely through automation, it cannot assess keyboard paths, mobile gestures, or the experience a screen reader user actually has. Treat it as a baseline check, not a final sign-off.

Screen Readers as Everyday Testing Tools

Screen readers are often framed as tools “for users with disabilities.” That is true, but they should also be a standard part of developer and QA toolboxes. Listening to your site through a screen reader is one of the fastest ways to understand whether the experience is actually usable.

JAWS

JAWS continues to be widely used in professional environments, especially in enterprise and government. It is powerful, flexible, and works across many applications. Advanced scripting support allows teams to simulate complex workflows or tailor testing to specific systems.

The tradeoff is cost and complexity. JAWS is a paid product, runs on Windows, and can feel intimidating at first. For teams that maintain high-traffic platforms or mission-critical services, however, it often becomes a core testing tool.

NVDA

NVDA has become a favorite among developers and accessibility testers for different reasons. It is open-source, free to use, and maintained by a strong community. It works well with major browsers and offers reliable feedback for many everyday scenarios.

While it may lack some of the more advanced enterprise features of JAWS and can still require some practice to learn, NVDA provides an honest look at how many users navigate the web.

Using both JAWS and NVDA gives teams a broader sense of how different setups behave and avoids relying on a single tool as a stand-in for all screen reader users.

Color Contrast and Visual Design Tools That Support Usable Interfaces

Visual design choices can quietly support or undermine accessibility. Contrast tools give teams a practical way to validate those choices before users are affected.

Color Contrast Analyzer

Color Contrast Analyzer is a widely used desktop tool for checking contrast on UI components, icons, and text over images. Designers and developers use it during reviews to confirm that colors meet WCAG thresholds.

It relies on manual sampling, so it does not “understand” context or typography on its own. Even so, its precision makes it an everyday workhorse for UI and front-end teams.

WebAIM Color Contrast Checker

WebAIM’s online checker is popular for its simplicity. You enter foreground and background colors, and it immediately reports whether they pass for different text sizes and WCAG levels.

It is not meant for full-page testing or design system governance. It shines when someone needs a quick answer during design, content editing, or code review.

Adobe Color Contrast Tools

Within the Adobe ecosystem, built-in contrast tools have become more important. Being able to test and adjust color values directly inside Creative Cloud apps helps designers bring accessible palettes into the development process from day one.

These tools focus narrowly on color rather than broader criteria, which is often exactly what creative teams need while exploring options.

Mobile Accessibility Tools for a Touch-First Web

For many organizations, mobile traffic is now the primary way users interact with content. Mobile accessibility tools keep teams honest about how their experiences behave on actual devices.

VoiceOver on iOS

VoiceOver ships with iPhones and iPads and is straightforward to enable. It lets teams test gestures, focus behavior, dynamic content updates, and the clarity of labels on iOS.

Developers quickly learn where touch targets are too small, where focus jumps in confusing ways, or where announcements do not align with what is on screen. There is a learning curve around gestures, and some apps introduce conflicts when they were not built with accessibility in mind, but the insight it provides is hard to replace.

TalkBack on Android

TalkBack serves a similar role in Android environments. It is deeply integrated into the OS and is used around the world on a huge variety of devices.

Running TalkBack on your own app or site reveals how headings, landmarks, controls, and dynamic content behave on Android. Because the Android ecosystem is so diverse, testing here often surfaces issues that never appear on a single desktop configuration.

As mobile usage continues to grow, teams that rely on VoiceOver and TalkBack gain a more accurate view of what users experience in everyday browsing.

Browser Extensions That Keep Accessibility in the Daily Workflow

WAVE Browser Extension

The WAVE extension overlays accessibility feedback directly on the page. Errors, alerts, and structural details are displayed visually, which makes it easier to discuss issues with designers, developers, and content authors together.

WAVE works particularly well for prototypes, single-page reviews, and quick checks during development. Since it evaluates one page at a time, it pairs nicely with full-site tools like SortSite rather than replacing them.

Document and PDF Accessibility Tools That Are Easy to Overlook

Many organizations rely on PDFs for policies, reports, and forms. If those documents are inaccessible, entire groups of users can be locked out, even if the website itself is in good shape.

Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

Acrobat Pro DC offers rich tools for editing tag structure, adjusting reading order, writing alt text, and labeling form fields. It allows teams to bring older documents closer to current accessibility expectations instead of rebuilding everything from scratch.

The product is powerful and can feel overwhelming at first. Some basic training goes a long way. Once a team member becomes comfortable with Acrobat’s accessibility features, document remediation tends to move much faster and more consistently.

As more content moves online in document form, this part of the toolkit has become hard to ignore.

Building an Accessibility Toolkit That Lasts

Building an accessibility toolkit that lasts is not about collecting every product available. It is about choosing the tools that give your team more clarity and less guesswork. Automated checks keep recurring problems in view. Screen reader and mobile testing show how interactions feel in everyday use. Design and document tools prevent rework before it starts. Over time, these habits strengthen the experience for everyone who depends on your site.

At 216digital, we help teams build accessibility into their everyday workflow and shape strategies that align WCAG 2.1 compliance with real development timelines. If you want support creating a roadmap that strengthens usability, reduces risk, and fits the way your team already works, schedule a complementary ADA Strategy Briefing today.

Greg McNeil

December 17, 2025

Testing & Remediation

Accessibility, Accessibility testing, automated testing, evaluation tools, Web Accessibility, Web accessibility tools, Website Accessibility, Website Accessibility Tools
AI, Pro Se Plaintiffs, and the Rise of Web Accessibility Lawsuits
Digital accessibility is no longer enforced only by regulators or a small group of plaintiff firms. AI tools now make it easy for individuals to prepare and file complaints on their own, and web accessibility lawsuits are following. Cases arrive faster, with less context, and often land on teams that are already stretched.

The expectation itself has not changed. If a website has barriers that stop people from completing tasks, those barriers still matter, and courts continue to treat them as significant. What has changed is how quickly issues can be turned into legal action. Understanding how AI-generated complaints are assembled and why they are showing up more often helps teams respond with more control instead of reacting under pressure.

The New Wave of Pro Se Plaintiffs Using AI

A growing share of accessibility cases are now filed by individuals representing themselves. In legal terms, these filers are pro se plaintiffs. Pro se litigation has existed for a long time, but its role in Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), enforcement has expanded quickly.

In 2025, federal data shows a sharp rise in pro se ADA Title III filings, increasing about 40% over 2024 according to Seyfarth Shaw. This democratization of litigation means that anyone with access to a large language model and basic tools can generate a legally sufficient complaint, lowering the cost of entry that once required retaining an attorney.

For organizations, the enforcement landscape looks different from what it did a few years ago. Complaints now come from a larger mix of people and can appear in higher volume. Some raise legitimate barriers. Others arrive with long lists of issues that do not reflect how the site actually behaves. Either way, they require time, money, and attention from teams that rarely have extra capacity.

How AI-Generated ADA Complaints Are Built

AI-assisted complaints tend to follow a common pattern. The details vary, but the steps are similar.

Drafting the Complaint

A plaintiff starts by describing what happened and where. That narrative becomes a prompt. The AI tool returns a complaint with legal framing, structure, and citations modeled on previous filings. AI tools like ChatGPT and similar large language models can draft these complaints in minutes, generating legal language and structured allegations automatically.

Gathering “Evidence”

Free and low-cost accessibility scanners are used to crawl key pages. They surface potential barriers related to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and compile reports and screenshots.. These tools do not detect every barrier, and they can mislabel or overstate issues, but the output looks technical and complete. Those reports are often attached as primary exhibits.

Reusing Templates

Complaints that seem effective or are shared online often become templates. Names, URLs, and dates are updated, while large sections of text stay the same. This makes it easy to file similar complaints against many organizations with only small edits.

Filing Online

Electronic court portals allow filings to be submitted from anywhere. There is no need to schedule time with counsel or navigate in-person paperwork to start a case.

Taken together, these steps compress the process. Work that once took days or weeks can now happen in hours. For a small number of individuals, this efficiency makes high-volume filing possible. That is where many business owners feel the impact: not from a single complaint, but from the sense that they can be targeted repeatedly with little warning.

Red Flags That Suggest AI Played a Major Role

Courts and defense teams are starting to recognize patterns that often suggest heavy AI involvement. These signals do not automatically invalidate a case, but they can help teams decide what to verify first.

Common signs include:

Citations That Do Not Exist

Some complaints reference cases that cannot be located in any legal database.

Misstated Holdings

The case is real, but the description of what the court decided is wrong or misleading.

Compressed Timelines

Lengthy, well-structured briefs appear very quickly, especially from non-lawyers who have limited experience with legal drafting.

Generic Lists of Barriers

The complaint lists issues that do not appear on the site, such as CAPTCHA problems when no CAPTCHA is used, or components that the interface does not rely on.

Mismatch Between Writing and Presentation

The legal documents read as if prepared by an experienced litigator, whereas the filer’s explanation in court or correspondence is far less sophisticated.

Even when these patterns are present, judges still look at the underlying question: are there real barriers that prevent people from using the site? For organizations, the practical response is to separate signal from noise. That means confirming which issues are genuine, technical but low impact, or exist only because an automated tool misread the interface. Time and budget are better spent on changes that fix real problems than on chasing every line of AI-generated text.

AI as Assistive Technology Does Not Change Legal Duties

AI is also changing assistive technology. Screen readers and related tools now use AI to generate richer image descriptions, interpret layouts, and infer relationships between elements. For some users, these improvements make certain sites more usable than they were a few years ago.

That progress does not change the legal standard. ADA enforcement focuses on whether the website or application itself is accessible. People are not required to rely on advanced or paid tools to get around avoidable barriers.

If someone using a common screen reader, keyboard navigation, or magnification tool cannot complete a task because of missing labels, incorrect semantics, or inaccessible controls, the barrier still exists. AI support tools do not erase that responsibility.

Courts are also starting to respond when AI is misused in filings. Some federal judges have sanctioned litigants for submitting materials that include fabricated cases or inaccurate citations, and in certain matters have restricted the use of AI in court filings altogether. These responses are still evolving, but they show that judges are paying attention to how AI is being applied in litigation.

From a risk perspective, it helps to treat AI-powered assistive tools as a supplement. They may help some users, but they do not replace the need for accessible design and development. They also do not insulate an organization from complaints if basic tasks remain inaccessible.

Where Web Accessibility Lawsuits Are Landing

Early data from Useablenet’s 2025 mid-year report shows more than 2,000 digital accessibility cases filed in the first half of the year, with projections approaching 5,000 by year’s end. A growing share of these web accessibility lawsuits involve AI-generated or AI-assisted complaints.

Most of these cases are not evenly spread across the web. They cluster in certain industries and patterns:
- E-commerce and transactional experiences
  Close to 70% of cases involve e-commerce sites. Product discovery, cart, and checkout flows draw attention because they are easy to test and directly tied to revenue.
- Mid-sized organizations
  Around 64% of cases involve companies with annual revenue of less than 25 million dollars. These organizations often have lean teams and limited internal legal support. That can make them appear more likely to settle quickly, which in turn can attract more filings.
- Sites using widgets and overlays
  More than 20% of recent cases involve sites that installed an accessibility overlay. Complaints often point out that the overlay did not fix underlying issues in templates, components, or key flows.
For executives and product leaders, the pattern is clear. AI is amplifying enforcement in environments where business-critical experiences are not fully accessible and where teams do not have a strong, documented accessibility program in place. The risk is not only the presence of barriers, but the combination of barriers and a filing landscape that now moves faster and at greater scale.

Building an Accessibility Program That Holds Up

In this environment, the most effective response is not to plan around individual cases, but to build a program that stands up to both user expectations and legal scrutiny.

Core elements include:

Anchor on WCAG 2.1 Level AA

Courts and regulators continue to lean on this standard when they evaluate access. Using it as your baseline keeps internal expectations aligned with external review.

Use Both Automated and Manual Testing

Automated tools are useful for catching common issues early and monitoring regressions, but they do not see everything. Manual testing with screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, zoom, and voice tools gives a clearer picture of what people experience and highlights problems automation misses.

Prioritize Templates and Critical Flows

Start with navigation, search, account creation, forms, cart, and checkout. Improvements in these areas remove barriers that show up often in complaints and protect the journeys most tied to revenue and trust.

Integrate Accessibility Into Existing Workflows

Add practical checks into design reviews, code reviews, and QA. Keep them focused and repeatable so they fit into current processes. When accessibility is part of the way releases ship, it becomes harder for issues to build up unnoticed.

Document What You Are Doing

Keep records of audits, remediation work, training, vendor requirements, and standards for components and content. This documentation helps teams stay aligned and provides a concrete way to show effort if a demand letter or complaint arrives. Over time, this kind of documentation becomes one of the strongest defenses an organization can bring to the table when facing web accessibility lawsuits.

For leadership, this approach places accessibility in the same category as security and privacy: an ongoing operational responsibility. It also creates a clearer position when responding to AI-assisted complaints that blend legitimate issues with errors or overreach.

Responding When an AI-Generated Complaint Arrives

When a complaint comes in, whether clearly AI-generated or not, the first goal is to reduce confusion and avoid unnecessary escalation.

Helpful steps include:

Validate the Issues

Test the specific barriers named in the complaint. Sort them into groups: incorrect claims, technically accurate but low-impact issues, and serious barriers that block tasks. This makes remediation plans more realistic and gives legal teams better information.

Review Citations and References

Confirm that cited cases exist and that the summaries are accurate. Flag problems so counsel can address them with the court or opposing party.

Avoid Rushed Surface Fixes

Installing a new overlay or making untested changes can introduce new issues or send a signal that accessibility is being treated as a checkbox. Focus on changes that are tested, documented, and consistent with your broader standards.

Feed Lessons Back Into the Program

Use what you learn to update components, patterns, and checks. Close gaps in design systems and QA so similar issues are less likely to reappear.

Handled this way, a complaint becomes part of an ongoing process rather than a series of disconnected emergencies.

Reducing Risk in an Era of AI-Generated Web Accessibility Lawsuits

The pace and shape of accessibility enforcement are changing, and no organization is fully prepared for the speed that AI has introduced into the process. Even teams that care about accessibility and make steady improvements can feel caught off guard when a complaint arrives that was drafted quickly and filed with little warning. You are not alone in that experience. Every industry is adjusting to a landscape where expectations remain familiar, but the mechanics are new.

There is still uncertainty in how digital Title III claims will evolve, especially as AI lowers the barrier to filing. What organizations can control is how they operate. Maintain a steady accessibility practice, align with established standards, and document decisions and remediation. That combination does not eliminate risk, but it holds up far better than reactive changes made under pressure and gives you a stronger footing when facing web accessibility lawsuits driven by AI.

If you need support building that foundation, we can help.

At 216digital, we can help develop a strategy to integrate WCAG 2.1 compliance into your development roadmap on your terms. To learn more about how our experts can help you confidently create and maintain an accessible website that supports both your business goals and the needs of your users, schedule a complementary ADA Strategy Briefing today.
Greg McNeil

December 16, 2025

Legal Compliance

Accessibility, ADA Lawsuit, ADA Lawsuits, ADA Website Compliance, Web Accessibility, web accessibility lawsuits, Website Accessibility
How Accessibility Helps Your Site Thrive in AI Search
Not surprisingly, organic traffic is becoming harder to predict, even when rankings remain steady. Search results are answering more questions directly, especially through AI Overviews, which means fewer users need to click through to individual pages. Gartner has suggested that traditional search volume could decline by around 25% by 2026, a pattern many teams already see reflected in their analytics.

These shifts in AI search are happening fast, and staying visible now means doing more than waiting for users to show up. A big part of this shift is how clearly your site presents information as a reliable source. For organizations that rely on search visibility, this is a major change and puts new focus on something many teams have overlooked: web accessibility.

From Blue Links to Answer Engines

Search behavior is changing in ways that affect your visibility. Google’s AI Overviews now show up in over 60% of searches, according to Xponent 21, so many users get their answers at the top of the page before looking at links. People are also starting their research in new places. Adobe Analytics found a 4,700% year-over-year jump in traffic to U.S. retail sites from AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity by mid-2025. This shift helps explain why your analytics might feel unpredictable, even if your keyword rankings stay the same.

Ranking still matters, but it no longer guarantees attention like it used to. Now, the key question is whether your page is clear and well-structured enough to be included in the answers users see first—often before they even think about visiting your site.

AEO and GEO in the Age of AI Search

Answer Engine Optimization centers on preparing content so that answer engines recognize it as a reliable source. It focuses on clarity, structure, and directness because these are the signals systems rely on when assembling summaries.

Generative Engine Optimization is similar, but it focuses on large language models. When someone asks an AI assistant a question related to your work, GEO checks if the assistant can understand your content well enough to use it. Often, pages that are good for AEO are also good for GEO, since both rely on clear organization and predictable markup.

Both frameworks share a practical requirement: information needs to be arranged in a way systems can understand without guesswork. Headings that follow a sensible hierarchy, concise explanations near the top of a section, and consistent semantic HTML help models determine how topics relate and which sections belong in the answer they produce.

Why Accessibility Improves AI Search Discoverability

This is also where accessibility carries more influence than many teams expect. WCAG-conformant sites already use patterns that support machine understanding: clear hierarchy, descriptive labels, consistent navigation, and stable markup. These fundamentals help people move through a site, and they help automated systems interpret its structure with greater confidence.

The connection shows up in the data. A Semrush analysis of 10,000 websites found that WCAG-compliant sites gained 23% more organic traffic and ranked for 2 more keywords than non-compliant sites. Many teams see similar improvements when they strengthen accessibility. The site becomes easier to navigate, the content becomes easier to interpret, and systems can use that information with more accuracy.

As AI Overviews, chat tools, and assistants become more important for finding information, accessible sites offer the clarity and consistency these systems need. The more predictable your site’s structure is, the more likely your content will be understood, trusted, and reused in modern search experiences.

How AI Tools “Read” Your Pages More Like Assistive Tech

AI systems do not see websites the way people do. They read the code. In many ways, they act like non-visual users, depending on HTML structure, headings, landmarks, labels, and text alternatives to understand meaning and relationships. Because of this, accessibility can influence AI search results more than many teams expect.

Clear structural cues reduce uncertainty for machines:
- Headings define topic boundaries and hierarchy.
- Landmark regions separate main content from navigation and repeated interface elements.
- Meaningful link text provides context when read out of sequence.
- Alt text turns images into usable information.
Accessibility research reinforces the value of this clarity. Sites without strong accessibility foundations can see an estimated 20 to 30% loss of traffic to AI-driven discovery tools.

JavaScript-heavy builds introduce additional risk. Many AI crawlers rely on the initial HTML and may not execute client-side scripts consistently. When essential content only appears after rendering, it can be missed. Server-side rendering, static generation, and pre-rendering help ensure that core content is visible to both assistive technologies and AI systems.

Accessibility Foundations That Improve AI Search Understanding

Accessibility lays the groundwork for how both people and automated systems understand a page. These practices give AI tools a cleaner map of the page, so it is easier to tell what each section is about and how they connect. When these elements are in place, a site becomes easier to navigate and easier for models to interpret with confidence.

Semantic Structure and Headings

A single descriptive H1 supported by a clear H2 and H3 sequence helps define the outline of the page. This hierarchy shows how ideas fit together, where one topic ends, and another begins. For pages that answer common questions, using a question-style heading with a direct answer near the top can serve users well and support models that look for natural question-and-answer pairs.

Alt Text for Multimodal AI

Images and diagrams that carry meaning need short, accurate alt text so their purpose is clear. These descriptions help visitors who cannot see the image and help AI systems understand what each visual represents. As multimodal models continue to expand, consistent text alternatives remain an important signal.

Clear Language and Section Hierarchy

Straightforward phrasing and well-organized sections reduce effort for readers. They also reduce uncertainty for AI systems that rely on clean, focused paragraphs to interpret and summarize content. When each block stays centered on one idea and headings reflect the structure beneath them, both audiences can locate the information that matters most.

Logical DOM Order and Keyboard Flow

Logical source order supports keyboard navigation and creates a clear reading path for tools that may not execute every script. Grouping related elements together and keeping navigation patterns consistent helps preserve that clarity across pages. These patterns improve usability and reduce the risk of misclassification by crawlers.

Stability and Performance for Crawlers

Stable pages that load quickly benefit everyone. They reduce the likelihood of timeouts or partial content that can limit what models see. Many performance improvements that support accessibility—such as limiting layout shifts or relying on lighter scripts—also make the page easier for AI systems to access and analyze.

Together, these foundations make the site more inclusive and easier for models to segment, interpret, and reuse content accurately across AI-driven experiences and AI Search results.

Content Patterns That Help Your Site Earn AI Citations

Once the structure is sound, content design determines whether a page becomes a cited source in AI Search and other modern discovery layers.

Shape Sections Around Clear Questions and Direct Answers

Pages that reflect natural-language questions paired with direct answers match with conversational prompts used in AI Search tools. Purposeful FAQ sections often perform well when they address specific user needs rather than serving as content dumping grounds.

Use Lists When They Strengthen Understanding

Lists and step-by-step formats break information into clean units that AI systems can reuse. They work especially well for processes, comparisons, and summaries.

Write With Precision So Content Is Easy to Interpret

AI systems favor content that is specific and free of vague claims. A warm, natural voice combined with concrete language improves comprehension for both people and machines.

Expand Sections With Helpful Detail Instead of Extra Filler

Pages that include definitions, context, and edge cases provide richer material for AI systems to evaluate and reference.

Schema Markup Signals That Strengthen AI Search Interpretation

Schema adds an extra layer of meaning that supports the work already done through accessible structure. It helps automated systems understand what type of content a page contains, how sections relate to each other, and when a page offers information that can answer specific questions. When used alongside well-defined headings and well-organized content, schema gives AI-driven tools a more complete picture of the page.

Focus on the formats that add the most value.
- Article schema works well for long-form guides that explain a topic in depth.
- FAQ Page schema is helpful when a page includes genuine question-and-answer pairs that reflect actual user intent.
- HowTo schema supports instructional content where each step has a purpose and appears in a consistent order.
What matters most is alignment between the schema and the visible content. The structure described in the markup should match what someone sees on the screen. When the content within the schema reflects the real wording and the real sequence on the page, it becomes a strong confirmation signal for systems that depend on accuracy to generate reliable responses.

Research from OpenAI, Google, and Bing shows that large language models benefit from pages that combine semantic HTML with structured data. Schema does not replace accessible code or strong writing, but it can reinforce the clarity already present. When the foundation is solid and the markup supports it, pages are easier for both people and automated systems to interpret and reuse.

Practical Steps to Improve Accessibility and AI Search Performance

You do not need a brand new site or a big replatform to prepare for what is coming. Teams that adapt well usually start small, with a few important templates, a focused audit, and clear patterns they can use again.

Start With an Accessibility and Discovery Audit

Begin with a short list of pages that already matter to your business. Core service pages, high-performing blog articles, and pages that answer common customer questions are the best place to start.

Review these pages through two lenses. First, run automated accessibility checks to surface issues with headings, alt text, landmarks, and link clarity. Then, test how those same pages appear in AI-driven environments by searching real user questions in Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Bing Copilot.

This establishes a practical baseline for both accessibility and AI Search visibility.

Repair Structure Before Adding Content

Fix your heading order, make sure the DOM is logical, and clearly define navigation and main content areas. These steps reduce confusion for assistive technologies and help AI systems read your content more reliably.

Shape Content Around Real Questions

Add focused FAQs where they make sense. Use question-style subheads followed by clear answers early in each section. Break dense explanations into smaller units that are easier to extract and reuse.

Use Schema to Reinforce Clarity

Apply Article, FAQPage, or HowTo schema only when it accurately reflects the visible content. Schema works best as confirmation, not decoration.

Monitor and Maintain

Accessibility and AI readiness are not one-time efforts. Regular checks, shared patterns across teams, and ongoing monitoring help prevent regressions as content evolves.

Accessibility as a Long-Term Strategy

Search is changing, and teams everywhere are still learning how to work in an environment shaped by AI summaries, conversational queries, and systems that select only a handful of sources. There is no perfect playbook yet. Teams are still learning what long-term visibility will require as AI Search matures.

What we do know is that accessibility helps. Clear structure, predictable markup, meaningful alternatives, and human-centered content give people a better experience, and they give machines the signals they need to interpret information with confidence. These fundamentals place your site on steady ground as AI Search continues to expand.At 216digital, we help teams build this foundation. We can work with you to create a strategy that brings WCAG 2.1 compliance into your development plans in a way that fits your goals and workflow. If you want to see how our experts can help you create and maintain an accessible website that meets your business goals and your users’ needs, schedule a free ADA Strategy Briefing today.
Greg McNeil

December 11, 2025

Web Accessibility Remediation

Accessibility, AI search, AI-driven accessibility, SEO, Web Accessibility, Website Accessibility
Too Many Cooks in the Website Accessibility Kitchen

If you’ve ever been in a meeting where someone says, “We need to make the website accessible,” you’ve likely seen what happens next. People nod in agreement and add supportive comments like, We should, We will, or Absolutely.

But once the meeting ends, something familiar happens. Everyone thinks someone else will take charge.

It’s like a busy kitchen where skilled chefs come and go, each adding something or making adjustments, but no one is in charge of the recipe. Everyone means well and the ingredients are good, but the final dish never really comes together.

This is what happens with website accessibility in many organizations. People care, but progress stalls because responsibility is spread out, priorities clash, and no one has the full overview.

Most teams don’t struggle because they lack motivation. Many are making an effort by reading articles, joining webinars, updating components, and running audits when possible. The real problem is a lack of clear direction and coordination.

This article explains why accessibility efforts stall when too many people are involved and shows how clearer roles and stronger teamwork turn that chaos into lasting progress.

Why “Too Many Cooks” Happens in Digital Teams

When you look at a typical digital team, the kitchen metaphor fits well. Many teams work on the website, but each faces different pressures, expectations, and ways of thinking.

Compliance teams are focused on risk and timelines. Engineering worries about capacity and technical debt. UX and product teams juggle inclusivity with brand constraints and deadlines. Content and marketing are pushing toward launches, conversions, and SEO. Finance watches budgets and outcomes. Leadership wants clarity on scope, timelines, and how this fits into broader strategy.

All of these concerns are valid and important. But each team works on its own schedule, uses its own language, and aims for different results.

As a result, everyone assumes another team will take charge of website accessibility.

Work moves from one department to another. Decisions are revisited again and again. A simple question like “Who owns this?” can turn into weeks of discussion.

The Hidden Costs of Website Accessibility Gridlock

When ownership is unclear, the effects are widespread, even if they aren’t obvious right away.

Teams create accessibility debt when they layer new pages, features, and campaigns on top of old barriers. Costs rise the longer those issues sit unresolved—especially when a team keeps copying an inaccessible form instead of fixing the original.

There are also legal and reputational risks. Barriers stay in production longer than planned, making complaints or legal action more likely. Even without lawsuits, trust fades when users keep running into the same problems.

Revenue takes a hit, too. About 71% to 73% of users with disabilities will abandon a website immediately when barriers make it difficult to use or navigate. That means fewer completed purchases, booked appointments, and sign-ups, even though analytics rarely identify accessibility as the reason.

Within teams, frustration grows. The unofficial “accessibility person,” usually someone who cares a lot, spends more time seeking approvals and alignment than doing real work. Projects slow down, and the word “accessibility” starts to remind people of stalled projects and extra work.

Finally, organizations can get stuck in endless planning. Meetings repeat the same questions: What’s our goal? Who owns this? What can we do this quarter? All this back-and-forth has its own cost.

The point isn’t to make anyone feel guilty. Almost every organization faces these issues. You’re not alone, and you’re not failing. You just don’t have clear ownership structures yet.

Why Ownership Is Blurry (Even for Teams Who Care)

This gridlock isn’t caused by a lack of effort. It’s caused by how website accessibility has historically been framed.

For years, teams treated accessibility as a “last step” before launch, just another item on a checklist. When everyone pushes it to the end, no one owns it from the beginning.

Leaders often give broad instructions like “Make this WCAG compliant,” but don’t define the scope, metrics, or roles. Each team thinks another group is better suited to lead. Everyone uses different terms: designers talk about usability, compliance teams focus on risk, and marketers care about conversions.

In practice, this leads to vague tickets like “Fix accessibility issues,” QA findings without a clear owner, and stakeholders disagreeing on priorities because there’s no shared framework.

This is where responsibility mapping becomes the turning point.

From Chaos to a Kitchen Brigade: Making Roles Clear

A great way to break the “too many cooks” cycle is to use accessibility responsibility mapping. The idea is simple: divide accessibility work into clear tasks, then assign who leads, who supports, and who should be consulted.

It’s not about adding more bureaucracy. It’s about setting clearer expectations.

The primary owner drives the accessibility task and ensures it is done correctly. Supporting roles contribute the guidance needed to shape the work. Other stakeholders stay involved through consultation or regular updates..

Take headings, for example. UX or content defines structure. Design expresses hierarchy visually. Development implements correct HTML tags. QA verifies assistive technology behavior.

Or consider forms: UX handles flow and labeling strategy; content writes the labels; developers programmatically associate everything; QA checks keyboard and screen reader behavior.

With media, content teams plan captions or transcripts; platform owners ensure video players support accessible controls.

Responsibility mapping doesn’t add more work. Instead, it spreads tasks to the people best suited for each part. Like a well-run kitchen team, everyone knows their role, but they’re all working toward the same goal.

How to Put Responsibility Mapping Into Practice

Getting started is easier than teams expect.

First, bring together the right people: representatives from design, content, development, QA, and those who handle risk or strategy. Focus the conversation on ownership, not on debating every accessibility issue.

Next, list the recurring tasks you handle today: components, content operations, media, core flows, and feature releases. For each one, assign a primary owner, supporting roles, and those who should be consulted or informed.

Then embed this into your actual workflows. Include responsibility fields in ticket templates. Mark design system components with who is responsible for each part. Make it clear who writes and reviews alt text. Start small by applying your new mapping to one important section of the site, like checkout or registration, then refine and expand.

Even small teams benefit. One person may wear multiple hats, but mapping helps distinguish when they’re acting as a designer, developer, or content author. Expectations become visible and realistic.

Collaboration Patterns That Make Website Accessibility Easier

Ownership alone isn’t enough. Teams also need habits that support clarity.

Start by grounding conversations in real user journeys. Instead of diving into tools or checklists, walk through how someone books an appointment or completes a purchase with a screen reader.

Catch issues early by building lightweight, recurring touchpoints into design, development, and QA—not at the end.

Lean on your design system as a shared foundation. Centralize accessible components to prevent barriers from being reintroduced with every new page.

Treat learning as part of the job. Hold quick internal demos, run short show-and-tells, and celebrate when someone removes a barrier. These small habits turn website accessibility from a burden into a shared craft.

And don’t forget to celebrate small wins. They build momentum.

Keeping the Menu Manageable: Sustainable Progress Over Perfection

Teams often worry that starting accessibility means the work will never end. But setting priorities helps keep things manageable.

Begin with the most important flows, like those related to revenue, registration, support, or high-traffic areas. Separate immediate fixes from short-term improvements and long-term changes. Create feedback loops with regular audits, user feedback, and post-release reviews.

Most importantly, change your mindset: website accessibility is ongoing maintenance. Like performance, security, and SEO, it’s part of keeping the site healthy over time, not just a one-time emergency project.

Consistent, steady movement beats big, unsustainable pushes every time.

From Chaotic Kitchen to Well-Run Accessibility Program

Accessibility efforts stall when there’s no clear leader. But things improve quickly when teams clarify roles, base decisions on real user experiences, and use frameworks that help them follow through.

If you feel stuck in “too many cooks” mode, start small. Choose one important user flow and map out who owns accessibility at each step. Or gather a few teammates and assign roles for three to five key components.

If your team has too much on its plate to keep accessibility top of mind, tools like a11y.Radar from 216digital can help. It offers ongoing monitoring, regular scans, and clear dashboards so accessibility stays visible without adding extra work. It quietly finds issues early, before they become rework, barriers, or legal risks, so teams can act on them instead of reacting later.

You don’t have to choose between moving fast and being accessible. With the right structure, support, and tools, your digital team can work smoothly, and accessibility becomes a natural part of everything you deliver—not just another task to juggle.

Greg McNeil

December 9, 2025

Web Accessibility Remediation

Accessibility, Accessibility Remediation, Accessibility testing, Web Accessibility, Web Accessibility Remediation, Website Accessibility

Why Lawmakers Are Pushing for Accessibility Reform

The Pressure From High-Volume Filings

Why States Point to Missing Title III Web Standards

Balancing Litigation Reform and Civil Rights

Three Legal Changes Shaping Accessibility Lawsuits

Federal Notice and Remediation Window Proposals

Federal Website Accessibility Standards Proposals

State Laws Targeting Abusive Website Accessibility Litigation

What May Change in Accessibility Lawsuits and What Will Not

What May Change

What Will Not Change

Multi-State Website Compliance and Accessibility Risk

How State Approaches Differ

Remediation Windows and a 30-Day Response Plan

Legislative Reform and Real Access

How to Make Website Accessibility Sustainable

Build Around High-Value User Journeys

Prevent Regressions Between Releases

Track How Regulations Are Evolving

How Teams Can Stay Ready as Regulations Take Shape

Shift 1: Why Digital Accessibility Is Becoming Core Website Infrastructure

Why One-Time Accessibility Fixes No Longer Work for Modern Websites

How Standards Are Becoming the Baseline, Not the Bonus

What Accessibility as Infrastructure Looks Like in Practice

Shift 2: How AI Is Changing Digital Accessibility Workflows

AI Will Build More, Developers Will Still Steer

Where AI Helps and Where It Falls Short

What Teams Need Before Scaling AI

Shift 3: Why Leadership and Culture Decide Whether Accessibility Actually Sticks

Where Accessibility Breaks Down Without Leadership Alignment

What Effective Accessibility Leadership Looks Like Day to Day

Why Skills and Shared Ownership Matter More Than Champions

How Culture Shapes Accessibility Outcomes Over Time

Turning These Shifts Into a Strategy That Holds Up

Looking Ahead to Accessibility in 2026

A Quick Refresher on WCAG and the Three Levels

The Four Principles of WCAG

Perceivable

Operable

Understandable

Robust

Why WCAG Level A Is Not Optional

Common WCAG Level A Failures Teams Miss

Alt Text That Breaks Meaning

Forms Users Cannot Complete

Keyboard Interaction That Is Assumed

Behavior That Changes Without Warning

How to See Where You Stand Today

A Practical Path to WCAG Level A, and Staying There

Address Issues at the Pattern Level

Give Teams Clear Guidance

Build Accessibility Into Daily Workflows

Revisit Regularly

Building a Confident Accessibility Foundation

Why Web Accessibility Still Gets Pushed Back

Many Barriers End in Abandonment

“Make It Accessible” Is Not a Plan

What Waiting Costs

Support Load and Operational Friction Add Up

Brand Trust Erodes in Subtle Ways

Teams Burn Out on “Not Yet”

Pressure Creates Rushed Work

Reframing Web Accessibility as a Shipping Standard

A Practical Path That Makes Progress Visible (Without Blowing Up Scope)

Start With Critical Journeys, Not “The Whole Site”

Turn Findings Into a Short Priority List Teams Can Act On

Create a Leadership Snapshot So the Work Stays Funded

Fix Patterns, Not Pages

Define a Release Floor That Fits Normal Delivery

A 90-Day Path That Builds Momentum Without Burnout

Days 1–30: Baseline the Journeys That Matter

Days 31–60: Remediate the Highest-Impact Components

Days 61–90: Add Guardrails So Progress Sticks

From “Someday” to “Starting Now”

VPAT and ACR, Untangled

When a VPAT Is Expected

The Risk of Treating Documentation Like a Formality

VPAT Myths That Waste Time and Energy

How to Decide If a VPAT Makes Sense for Your Organization

How to Make the Document Useful, Even When It Is Not Perfect