There’s no debating it: addressing digital accessibility is essential if we want to achieve true inclusion and equal access for all web users. Each and every company should strive to meet digital accessibility standards for both their websites and applications.
…but what exactly should a business look for when it starts to tackle their own accessibility? What does a company need?
Businesses need a way to ensure a higher level of accessible content, a way to learn about digital accessibility and how it works, and a way to keep an eye on the changing and updating requirements. If your business also happens to be starting its digital accessibility journey as well, it’s easy to become intimidated or lost in the sea of accessibility options and information.
One of the most intimidating things about initially tackling digital accessibility is that it is a moving target — the standards are always improving and the interpretation of the law is constantly in flux. That means that a lot of companies don’t quite know where to begin when it comes to fixing their accessibility issues.
Common questions or concerns that most companies have at the start of their accessibility journey include:
- How are we supposed to meet the expected accessibility requirements if they are consistently evolving?
- As an ethical, moral company, how can we ensure more accessible content for users and support equal access and opportunity?
- As a business that needs to follow the law and rules of best practice, how do we address these requirements and lower the chance of expensive litigation without spending a fortune?
Each question above is an important concern that must be addressed, especially if time or financial constraints are involved. What’s a good answer, though, in the sea of options?
Let us introduce you to Max Access.
Max Access isn’t a software that offers a single solution — it’s an entire accessibility toolkit that includes a variety of components to help improve your website’s accessibility. It offers both immediate accessibility results upon installation as well as daily scans and updates powered by AI technology in order to consistently better your site and make it more digitally accessible than before.
Max Access also offers valuable resources for users with disabilities, allowing them to better navigate your website. The software shows immediate and prolonged results, and is so much more than some of the other overlays or widgets you may see on the market. In addition to addressing your company’s accessibility issues, Max Access will help you and your company understand how and where accessibility issues show up on your website and how to solve both the simple and more complex accessibility issues you come across.
Whether you’re a business that is just starting its accessibility journey or a company that is looking for a product with simply more to offer, Max Access is an invaluable resource that will boost your accessibility.
Want to know exactly how and why? Look at the 4 worthwhile reasons below:
1. Max Access Immediately Boosts Accessibility -- Including on Mobile Devices
First and foremost, Max Access is a tool that prioritizes, promotes, and supports website and browser-based software application accessibility. After downloading a single line of code, Max Access will immediately address and remediate some of the simpler, yet still very essential, accessibility issues on your website or application.
After the initial download, it will then scan your website every 24 hours — consistently going through a more in-depth remediation process powered by AI technology. These daily scans will catch a variety of accessibility issues, even generating invaluable content such as alt-tags and captions for images to help visually impaired users. Best of all, your company’s accessibility will consistently improve while using Max Access due to the AI technology that powers the daily scanning software — machine learning allows our software to improve itself as it remediates more content. That means the more Max Access improves from fixing accessibility issues on your website, the more your website will improve, too.
Another crucial Max Access feature that boosts accessibility upon download is the Accessibility Toolbar, which pops up on the screen and allows users with disabilities to set their accessibility preferences. The toolbar includes useful front-end accessibility options for web users including tab navigation, text to speech options, contrast options, and more.
One of the biggest issues with most automatic accessibility software is that they don’t work with mobile devices — and in an increasingly digital and mobile world, that’s a very important aspect to address. Max Access resolves this issue.
The Accessibility Toolbar works just as well on mobile devices as it does on desktops or tablets. The toolbar adjusts itself to fit the layout of the screen that it’s on, and offers the same accessibility options to all users.
While the automated remediation and Accessibility Toolbar won’t find or solve every single accessibility issue, it significantly reduces them and helps prove that you are striving for inclusion and accessibility for all.
Max Access doesn’t just stop there, though, like other accessibility overlays or widgets. It goes one better.
2. Detailed Reports with Code-Level Recommendations Offer Crucial Data and Practical Next Steps
Despite ambitious marketing claims by some accessibility overlay companies, there is one unavoidable fact: accessibility overlays simply cannot identify and automatically fix 100% of compliance issues.
Why?
Some accessibility issues might be simpler fixes, but others can be very complex. Because of that complexity, many of the WCAG accessibility guidelines require human intervention, interpretation, and an understanding of context in order to determine if an accessibility violation is present.
The immediate conundrum is clear: overlays and widgets alone cannot complete code-level remediation, but full manual remediation is a time consuming, and sometimes expensive, process. What do you choose? Max Access has an answer for this issue as well.
Our AI-driven scans and Accessibility Toolbar succeed in finding the highest number of accessibility issues automated remediation can get — and for the other portion, we’ve incorporated an invaluable tool to pinpoint a website’s accessibility issues right at the code level to fast-track and address manual remediation.
In other words, Max Access not only automatically remediates many compliance issues — it also alerts you to the violations that AI alone cannot fix, allowing you to review and fix them manually.
Max Access scans a website every 24 hours, and then generates an accessibility report each week. This report is an overview of the number of accessibility issues on your website with and without using the Max Access software and automatic remediation. With the Max Access Pro version specifically, you will receive an additional, detailed accessibility report that breaks down the issues first to the page level, and then to the specific code level and problematic element itself.
The Pro version offers detailed individual page reports that pinpoint the exact part of code that is causing an accessibility issue, which accessibility standard it violates, and even which WCAG rule it falls under. This additional report offers invaluable data that will not only save your company time, but will also tell you exactly what you need to fix through manual remediation. For companies with their own development team or even some coding knowledge, they are then able to address a decent percentage of their own accessibility issues.
And again…Max Access doesn’t just stop there.
3. Supplemental Training Educates and Empowers Your Team and Your Company
We understand that educating and empowering your team is the best way to get any job done, including understanding the WCAG requirements and how they apply to your website’s code.
That’s why we include educational WCAG walkthrough videos with Max Access Pro.
What exactly does that mean?
In addition to the detailed reports that pinpoint the problematic code element and the accessibility standard that indicates why it is an issue, Max Access Pro includes educational and instructional videos to help clients understand why the issue within the code is a problem in the first place and how it relates to a user’s experience. This will give your team a better understanding of the accessibility issue itself and also how to resolve it.
Max Access — as well as ABILITY — recognizes that some companies have their own development teams and the ability to manually remediate at least part of their accessibility issues themselves.
In order to truly advance digital accessibility, Max Access dedicates itself to educating clients about digital accessibility along with the remediation process. Ultimately, we believe it all comes down to giving a client as much control as possible over the remediation process — and that control is exactly why we included even more of the best, nuanced features possible in Max Access Pro.
4. Advanced Management Options and Customizable Features Give You (and the User) Superior, In-Depth Control
Each client comes to the table with a different skillset and awareness of digital accessibility, just as each web user, with or without a disability, navigates a website or application in a different way. Max Access Pro includes features specifically designed for a custom experience both on the front and back end of the software, truly benefitting all parties involved.
On the back end, businesses have the ability to not only view the specific line of code with accessibility issues through the detailed report — they also have the ability to manage and change alt-tags and ARIA labels. AI technology automatically generates the text and captions for images, but the Max Access dashboard will also have all images organized and displayed so you can access and change the alt-tags as your company sees fit. Similarly, Max Access offers automated solutions for ARIA labels that can be altered or replaced, giving your company true management and control of the Max Access software.
On the front end, site users will be able to customize and set their site preferences through the Accessibility Toolbar. This includes users with disabilities who would benefit from the toolbar’s options (including screen reader options, text/font options, color contrast options, and more), but it also includes users who don’t need the software at all and prefer to keep the toolbar turned off. But why would we include users who might not want to use our software in our design?
A common complaint about automated remediation and overlays is that they can interfere, interrupt, or override a disabled user’s personal assistive technology/device — sometimes even forcing them to use a software they do not prefer. We addressed this issue head on.
The reason why most automatic software overrides assistive technology is because it is invisible to a user’s assistive device itself, so the user can’t detect its presence in order to turn the software on or off. The front-end Accessibility Toolbar that is included in Max Access is not invisible to assistive technology, meaning that all assistive devices will be able to turn the toolbar on or off in order to change preferences. If a user with an assistive device does not wish to use the toolbar due to pre-programmed settings on their own device, Max Access will not force them to use the Accessibility Toolbar instead. The toolbar was and is designed to offer additional support for users with disabilities, giving them the ability and power for extended control of a website’s navigation, content, and layout.
To put it simply — for users with disabilities who do require tailored accessible content, the toolbar is a valuable component. For users who already require assistive devices for any daily task or for users without a disability who don’t require additional accessibility help, the toolbar can be turned off and tucked away in the corner of the screen — meaning that a user’s experience will not be interrupted by the Accessibility Toolbar if they do not wish to use it.
The Ultimate Accessibility Toolkit
Businesses must recognize digital accessibility as an essential piece of the equality puzzle.
Without it, digital spaces will fall short. They will fail users with disabilities — making them unable to perform daily tasks, access vital information, or have the same opportunities as other users.
In an increasingly digital world, that simply won’t do.
Max Access will immediately boost your digital accessibility and offer valuable resources for your users that allow them to better navigate your website. Its AI technology tackles smaller WCAG-related issues, and the Max Access Pro detailed reports then provide crucial data and information to support additional manual remediation.
Utilizing Max Access to the fullest extent can boost and increase a business’s accessibility substantially — and offer valuable accessibility options to help avoid litigation. Max Access is a fantastic place to start your accessibility journey, especially before or during your certification process.
If you want to work on getting a full, official accessibility certification and bulletproof litigation protection, Max Access can bridge the accessibility gap and act as a stepping stone while you wait for the certification process to be completed.
Max Access is an affordable monthly software that can be customized to address your accessibility needs, and the value it holds for your company is clear — Max Access is not only a software to boost initial accessibility and litigation protection, it is also a great tool to learn more of the specifics about the WCAG and code remediation.
What should you expect from Max Access then, especially Max Access Pro?
Expect code-level recommendations.
Expect educational support.
Expect a boosted brand perception.
Expect immediate value.
But, ultimately...expect helping others get the web access they need.
And then expect a phenomenal customer service team to help you through it all.
Jumpstart your digital accessibility compliance process with Max Access.
ABILITY is a member of both the W3C and the IAAP, and is a leading innovator in the field of digital accessibility. We strive to promote digital inclusion and true accessibility for everyone, and consistently roll out updates and new features for our software.
