This article draws heavily upon insights shared by Samantha Evans in ASAE Collaborate. Known as the "Accessible CAE," Samantha is the Certification Manager for the International Association of Accessibility Professionals, a division of G3ict. She is a prominent voice who regularly speaks on accessibility within the association space. Follow Samantha's work on LinkedIn.
In recent years, the digital landscape has seen the emergence of accessibility widgets, overlays, and AI-assisted tools claiming to revolutionize website accessibility. These tools often promise easy fixes for making websites usable for people with disabilities while boasting about achieving compliance with standards like WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. However, there are critical reasons why such widgets are not recommended as a primary or complete accessibility strategy.
1. The Illusion of Accessibility
Deceptive Marketing: Many of these widgets are marketed with claims that can overstate what automated tools can realistically accomplish, including promises of broad accessibility or compliance without meaningful human review, design changes, or remediation work.
Equity and Access: Accessibility isn’t just about meeting technical standards; it’s about equitable use and access. Any layer or overlay that stands between a disabled user and the content can interfere with the user’s own assistive technology, preferences, or browser settings, and may create new barriers rather than remove them.
2. Overpromising and Misleading Claims
Font Solutions for Dyslexia: Claims of selling fonts that solve dyslexia can mislead the public. Dyslexia is a processing disability, not simply a visual presentation issue. No single font has proven universally helpful for dyslexic readers.
Limited Effectiveness of AI Testing: AI-based testing widgets and automated accessibility scanners can identify some technical errors, but they lack the ability to determine usability, relevance, or context. They can address only a portion of accessibility issues, especially those that are machine-detectable. Many issues still require manual review, assistive technology testing, and judgment from accessibility-trained humans.
3. Fundamental Limitations of AI and Overlay Tools
Built-In System Features: Many of the functionalities offered by these widgets, such as font size, color contrast, magnification, reduced motion, and other display preferences, are already integral parts of operating systems and browsers. Users of assistive technology often have these settings customized to their needs, and a website-level widget should not override or compete with those preferences.
Inadequacy in Handling Multimedia and Content Quality: AI may assist with accessibility-related tasks, such as suggesting alt text or generating draft captions, but it cannot reliably determine whether those outputs are accurate, meaningful, complete, or appropriate in context. Charts, graphs, videos, PDFs, forms, and other complex content often require human review and content-owner judgment.
What Does This Mean?
While AI widgets may promise convenient solutions for website accessibility, they fail to address the core principles of genuine inclusivity. Digital accessibility is not a one-size-fits-all problem; it demands nuanced, human-centered solutions that consider diverse user needs and experiences.
For a truly accessible website, it’s crucial to engage in best practices recommended by accessibility experts, prioritize human evaluation and testing, and foster an inclusive design mindset from the outset. Accessibility isn’t a checkbox to mark—it’s a continuous journey toward creating an internet that is genuinely open and accessible to everyone.
In an ongoing effort to support more accessible customer websites, Novi AMS works with Denise Páne of Access Design Studios. Her team conducts periodic audits of the themes used to create Novi customer websites and provides our engineering and product design teams with actionable feedback. Novi’s goal is to support accessibility best practices, including alignment with WCAG 2.1 AA as a widely used benchmark, while continuing to evaluate evolving guidance such as WCAG 2.2.
Accessibility is also a shared responsibility. Novi can provide an accessibility-minded platform, theme improvements, and ongoing product work, but customer-managed content—such as images, PDFs, videos, color choices, embedded tools, and third-party scripts—can affect the accessibility of an individual website. While few websites can claim to be “100% accessible,” our team is committed to continuing meaningful progress toward more inclusive digital experiences.