Essential Accessibility Review

Web accessibility is increasingly gaining awareness. In 2019, there was an 8.8% increase in lawsuits filed in the federal court around web accessibility. The surest bet is to prevent any potential crisis. The good news is Essential Accessibility will get you protected. This famous Accessibility-as-a-Service Platform confidently promises its clients to deliver a website that is 100% compliant to the American Disability Association (ADA) standards, the WCAG 2.1, the European Standards (EN301-549), and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), and Section 508. This Essential Accessibility review will show all the important parts of this unique solution.

Essential Accessibility comes to the web accessibility market with interesting offerings. Their promise is to deliver an accessibility solution that enables your website to meet all the 12 guidelines provided in the WCAG 2.0 for digital accessibility, thereby confirming the three levels of digital accessibility. While levels A (minimum accessibility) and AA conformance (addressing most common accessibility issues) are good attainments, taking the next step to implement the 17 Success Criteria encompassed in the WCAG 2.1 ensures that your website achieves maximum accessibility. Essential Accessibility has created a clear road map to this lofty goal. The web accessibility brand gives you and your in-house team a head start to accessibility through its comprehensive WCAG 2.1 checklist. It is a very detailed, easy-to-use resource for accessibility professionals and industry greenhorns.

Essential Accessibility Solutions

Essential Accessibility understands website compliance enough to offer a blend of two solutions. As is common to most accessibility solutions, the road to full compliance with Essential Accessibility starts with a diligent automated scanning to locate several compliance violations that are scattered across the web. Proper testing involves thorough testing of each component of the website. Upon completing the digital accessibility testing, Essential Accessibility then integrates the accessibility toolbar to create a smooth experience for individuals with different types of disabilities.

Brand Disability Channel

A quite ingenious innovation from Essential Accessibility is its unique Brand Disability Channel innovation. This platform is a sort of website extension which is created solely for people with disabilities to deliver a seamless experience beyond barriers created by their physical conditions. So, instead of a common page for all users, the Brand Disability Channel is an exclusive, welcome/landing page that pops up when a disabled user clicks to access the feature. In addition to serving as a platform for an optimum experience, it is also a customized marketing space for users with disabilities. Perhaps Essential Accessibility was informed to develop this unique solution by its partnership with the National Organization on Disability (NOD), Multiple Sclerosis Association of America (MSAA), the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM), and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

For brands that understand the game of web accessibility and compliance, the process is almost the same. Digital accessibility testing, manual remediation, and assistive technology are of paramount importance. Essential Accessibility provides one of the best Assistive Technologies to improve accessibility. In specific terms, Essential Accessibility has four interesting features that we reviewed:

1.  Digital accessibility testing
2.  Manual remediation
3.  Assistive technology for the disabled
4.  Brand Disability Channel

Essential Accessibility’s digital accessibility testing and remediation combine automated testing with manual testing. During our Essential Accessibility review, we noticed that this combination offers adjustments to eliminate all barriers to web accessibility compliance. Essential Accessibility’s web accessibility solution leverages automation to achieve compliance. The first step in its web remediation process starts with an AI-powered automated scanning tool. This software conducts comprehensive automated technical and functional tests on your website user interface, wireframes in development, and mobile apps.

Reporting

Following this, an exhaustive audit report is issued with meticulous recommendations and fixes with code-level snippets. There are two options to choose from for the Manual remediation after the initial web audit stage: an in-house option or Essential Accessibility expert service.

Unlike several compliance solutions on the market, Essential Accessibility does not work with quick-fix overlays, which appear to be the web accessibility fad. Essential Accessibility contends that quick-fix plugins do not get down to the roots of compliance issues and may increase the odds of getting sued. It condemns JavaScript codes in strong terms and relies instead on a more thorough procedure.

Building products and services that are satisfying, effective, and efficient is part of the essential components of web accessibility. This is the real motivation for this innovative toolbar from the stables or Essential Accessibility. The technology was designed to help people with disabilities surmount structural barriers on the internet.

Essential Accessibility’s Assistive Technology Toolbar and mobile application heighten user experience for individuals who have challenges reading a screen, typing, gesturing, or moving a mouse. It comes in two versions: Assistive Technology Browser and Assistive Technology for Android.

Individuals with, Stroke, Paralysis, Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis, Dyslexia, Parkinson’s disease, Cerebral Palsy, and other age-related conditions can now conduct transactions online and engage with their favorite brands digitally using the Assistive Technology Browser.

Assistive Technology for Android, on the other hand, is an application that makes it easy for disabled individuals to touch-screen phones. This solution has several amazing features, including:

• Hands-free Mode: This is a viewfinder that detects users’ faces. The cursor is controlled by a swipe of the head up, down, right, or left. Using this feature, people with disabilities can scroll, swipe, and tap.
• XY Mode: is an innovative feature that empowers users to navigate platforms through on-screen coordinates.
• Easy Grid Mode: empowers end-users to navigate websites through voice.
• Tag Mode: similar to Easy Grid, this feature is voice-controlled. All points are labeled with numbers and letters. The user pronounces the letter that corresponds to a number to navigate the web page.

Getting compliance certification from Essential Accessibility might not be as simple as it is for other web accessibility brands. In the case of Online ADA, for instance, the step is quite simple and easy to choose. You can easily choose to buy a web accessibility software audit and charge your in-house team to leverage the audit report to effect necessary change after which your site is rescanned certified for compliance if found compliance-error free.

Although this digital accessibility testing feature also exists with Essential Accessibility, the bulk of the information available on its website is somewhat indifferent toward this effort. Perhaps this is due to the brand’s strict stance on web accessibility and its vast knowledge of the challenges and dangers of a half-baked accessibility process. This, however, is not to say that Essential Accessibility monopolizes certifiable manual remediation to their handpicked team of experts. Quite interestingly, the brand offers accessibility training for teams and corporate organizations. I will talk more about this later on.

That said, the surest and easiest way to get Essential Accessibility’s compelling compliance certification is to get on its Managed Accessibility Program. In its relentless bid to attain the highest level of compliance possible, Essential Accessibility’s managed service supplements the client’s internal expertise. Thus, Essential Accessibility’s team complements efforts by your in-house development team to attain full compliance. In other instances, this feature extends and even recreates internal expertise to ensure sustainable and ongoing digital accessibility compliance. They do this by driving compliance with regulatory and statutory accessibility standards. In addition to helping clients achieve short-term needs, Essential Accessibility also creates long-term strategies for sustained compliance.

Training

Essential Accessibility’s training is a great service for your internal needs. What we noticed during our research and review, is that through this feature, Essential Accessibility helps your team integrate accessibility into workflows and outputs following comprehensive coursework consisting of training manuals and reference materials, testing techniques, playbooks, style guides, best practices, and implementation processes. This is a profitable investment for your web developers, content associates, quality assurance personnel, program managers, and will receive technical training on digital accessibility.

Essential Accessibility’s are quoted based on the request, according to brand needs and accessibility plan. If you are interested in working with this platform solution, you can request a quote for based on your requirements.

Essential Accessibility’s client’s support includes a list of FAQs, providing ready answers to a list of questions with apt responses. Clients can get in touch through a phone call, fax, and email. The company also has a toll-free line to call for support. That is one of a kind.

Essential Accessibility automation software works seamlessly across website platforms and CMS including Shopify, SAP, ORACLE, AQUIA, Adobe, IBM, Salesforce, Sitecore, and Big Commerce.