Which digital accessibility service do you need? We’ll help you choose!
There is no single right approach to digital accessibility for every situation. From risk assessments and detailed audits to training and user testing with people with disabilities, different approaches can help depending on where an organisation is in its journey. This article will help you choose which service is the best fit and when.
Much has already been written – including by Works. colleagues – about what digital accessibility means in practice, who the law applies to, and what to consider during design and development to ensure a digital interface meets the requirements.
In this article, we introduce our services and help you decide which one to choose and when.
1. Risk assessment – the ‘small audit’
If you need an initial assessment of your current situation, we recommend a risk assessment. This review covers a smaller, predefined set of pages, and the audit is carried out on just one device and operating system. It focuses primarily on the most critical errors that hinder use, as well as those most commonly found on the websites of organisations in the relevant industry.
When should you choose it?
We recommend it to clients who are just starting to address accessibility but are unsure where to begin. It can also be useful for teams whose development capacity is fully allocated, or who simply need a quick, affordable way to identify pain points and the most commonly occurring errors.
What will you get from us?
The approach is based on exploratory assessment and the Pareto principle: we identify the error types that occur most often, as well as issues that cause users to get stuck. The findings document presents WCAG violations through specific examples and suggests the expertise required to fix them. (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
Limitations
Risk assessment has limitations that are worth considering before you choose it:
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As this is not an audit but a risk assessment, the service is not intended to uncover every error that may occur. This means some errors may remain undiscovered and unresolved.
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Not every commonly occurring, typical error is listed; instead, we use examples and descriptions to support the discovery of other errors.
2. Detailed accessibility audit
During a detailed audit, we use a methodology developed by our team to uncover errors across the interface. This ensures that, beyond clearly obstructive issues, we also identify problems that violate less obvious and more difficult-to-grasp WCAG success criteria. (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
When should you choose it?
We recommend this service to clients who have already completed accessibility improvements and would like to carry out a ‘re-audit’ to address any remaining errors. It can also be useful for teams able to fix the issues identified shortly after the audit, so that no major changes are made to the site between the audit and the fixes. It can also help clarify exactly which requirements the interface needs to meet, supporting the prevention of future errors.
What will you get from us?
A comprehensive audit covering every issue across desktop and mobile environments. The findings document includes a detailed list of errors, WCAG references, recommended fixes and the role most likely responsible. (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
3. Accessibility training
The aim of our two-day, practice-focused training is to build accessibility awareness and knowledge within your organisation. Participants learn the theoretical foundations (the legal background, types of disability and statistics), WCAG standards, and how to independently check accessibility using manual and automated tools. They also receive support in correctly interpreting the results of audits carried out by us, ensuring that they can provide feedback to developers or designers without our help in the future. (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
When should you choose it?
We recommend this service to clients who have already completed at least one expert audit and fixed the issues identified, while continuing to update their interfaces. This means they do not need to turn to an external auditor before every update. It can also be useful for teams looking to build in-house capability and reduce costs in the long term.
What will you get from us?
A two-day, practice-focused training course covering the legal background, types of disability and WCAG criteria, as well as the fundamentals of auditing on your team’s own website. By the end of the training, the team will have jointly created its own error-list template, which we will also apply in practice during the exercises. (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
4. User testing with people with disabilities – real experiences, real feedback
Some of the most valuable feedback comes directly from the people affected. In our user tests, we involve testers with disabilities who, beyond sharing their general experiences, can provide feedback on a live interface. We recruit testers from our own reliable database, which includes participants with a range of disabilities in addition to visually impaired users.
When should you choose it?
We primarily recommend it to teams that have already fixed the issues found in audits, and perhaps also completed a re-audit, but want to carry out one final check of the interface to filter out blocking and more serious problems. We can also use this type of test in specialist environments that cannot be effectively assessed using conventional audit methodology, such as TVs, kiosks, POS systems and other hardware interfaces.
What will you get from us?
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UX interviewsStructured conversations in which users share their experiences, difficulties and observations while using the digital interface. (user experience)
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Bug-finding testA specialised form of functional testing, supplemented with accessibility considerations. The aim is for participants to find as many issues as possible, including errors that cause users to get stuck. We then categorise and assess these using the WCAG-based framework we have developed. While this method does not replace an accessibility audit, it is excellent for identifying the most serious issues. (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
Further reading
If you would like to read more about accessibility, take a look at our earlier articles on the subject:
**We work at several levels, using several methods, but with one goal:**to make your digital services accessible to everyone – not only because it is a legal obligation, but because it is the foundation of a more inclusive, open digital world.
If you have any questions about our services, or are unsure which direction is right for your team, please get in touch!
The author is Eszter Kemper-Ángyán, Experience Designer and accessibility expert at Works.