Accessibility Audit Services: Everything That Brands Need To Know

As we continue to progress digitally, web accessibility has become more important. It is to ensure that the website content is accessible by everyone. No one should miss out because they are specially-abled. That brings the need to get accessibility audit services from reputed companies.

Accessibility auditing is a combination of automated and manual processes. It is performed by professionals who use different assistive technologies. Although automated testing itself does the work, it is not enough alone. That is why performing the whole process is important to get full coverage.

Accessibility audit companies are becoming a necessary resource for brands. Their role in making content easily understandable to impart knowledge and information is vital. Companies audit their brand?s websites to check for accessibility in different ways.

Talking about the benefits, there are plenty of them. So, in this post, we will discuss all of them to educate brands on the same.

What are the Different Types of Accessibility Audits?

There are various ways to carry out website accessibility audits. These processes measure your website?s existing accessibility rating. Based on that, they create a list of actions and strategies to improve that.

Before choosing the right audit type for your brand?s website, do remember these factors -

• How much expertise is needed in your brand?
• What is the size of your brand?s website?
• What is the type of publishing system?

Options are present both for training an in-house team or outsourcing experts. Outsourcing an accessibility audit services provider is always the better option out of the two.

Benefits of outsourcing an accessibility audit services provider -

• Get specialized expertise in web accessibility solutions.
• Brands get independent and expert suggestions.
• The report status can be evaluated by experts and their viewpoints.
• Brands can choose an auditing company based on their track records.
• Brands can connect with existing clients to know about the market reputation of the company.
• Get access to different suitable methodologies and audit tools.

Types of audits

LOE Audit

LOE or Level of Effort Audit estimates the cost and magnitude of a remediation project of accessibility. The estimate report shows detailed stats for the pages that need to be fixed. They also show the total number of defects on each page of the website.

Risk Audit

The Risk Audit shows a detailed list of potential blockers that are severe and critical. Finding out about these blockers is important primarily because they hinder accessibility. Especially for differently-abled people, this audit is important. However, the Risk Audit services do not offer remediation, unlike LOE Audit.

Automated Audit

Automated Audit is one of the most popular ones out there. It checks for certain accessibility features and provides instant feedback. Brands can know whether web content is capable of delivering the best user experience. This type of audit is suitable for assessing repetitive tasks. Based on the results, company experts explain the scenario to brands.

Manual Audit

Sometimes, automated audit processes leave incomplete results. The failure of machines is overcome by expert human expertise. Outsourcing from professional companies assures accurate results. Besides, brands get to know the right interpretation of their audit stats.

Functional Audit

This type of auditing ensures whether websites that claim to be accessible are really so. The only way to select that is by conducting audit tests. Companies providing functional auditing services use various assistive technologies to evaluate.

Does Your Brand Really Need to Care About Accessibility?

Brands ask this question often - is it essential to connect with an accessibility audit services provider? Now, this ensures that the importance of accessibility is still somewhat in the shadows.

Accessibility auditors and consultants make sure that the content is engaging and understandable by everyone. For all brands, it is indeed important to care about accessibility.

The reasons are many, and the important ones to remember are -

Legal Risks and Complaints

Out of all the other reasons, this one is the most vital. There are multiple accessibility drivers, and the important ones are - compliance and legal risks.

Today, the World Wide Web is more significant than ever before. It has become a part of the daily lives of millions of people worldwide. The audience today depends on websites a lot, especially eCommerce websites. So, it isn?t wrong to argue that web accessibility is more like a civil right of humans.

The ADA (American?s with Disabilities Act) states that disabled people must also enjoy equal access to public services. Besides, they should also visit and enjoy public places.

However, there isn?t any explicit reference to web accessibility in it. Still, the digital sphere is not away from it in any way.

Therefore, not addressing them will make your brand face accessibility lawsuits. Since 2018, the number of lawsuits is growing rapidly. These legal lawsuits can also prove to be highly costly to your brand image.

All of these can be escaped by introducing professional audit services.

Market Share and Audience Reach

In the States, disability is a serious issue. And the number of disabilities is many - cognitive, hearing, visual, motor, etc. Therefore, by ignoring accessibility solutions your brand can lose a large market share.

According to various reports in 2016, around 20 USD worth of business were lost. The reason behind that was only one - disabled people couldn?t access the websites.

Improving your brand?s accessibility is simply part of a good business sense. Now, of course, it has its limitations somewhere. After all, brands cannot improve their accessibility to attract the last customer on the planet.

However, getting audit solutions to check accessibility is really essential. At least, they can go a long way towards helping people who need it. Brands can check whether they are also missing out on these audience sections.

Moreover, some accessibility solutions are beneficial and convenient even for the regular audience. Services such as transcription and closed captioning make content easier to grasp for everyone.

Positive PR and Brand Image

Living in an era of digital activism and revolution, we find some amazing traits among the audience. Many consumers love supporting brands when they take a positive step towards anything.

From different survey reports that we have gone through we found an interesting inference. Around 65% of the audience fancies buying products from a company that is socially active. By ?socially active,? we didn?t mean that their social media handles are functional.

Instead, they are eager to support those brands that have a say in different social issues. So, when your brand takes a stand towards this issue, it?ll enhance your brand image. Not just among the buyers but also among their families, friends, and advocates.

Thus, it is like placing the foundation stone for positive PR in the market. Gradually, your brand will become a popular name in society. As a result, it will also boost your brand?s market presence.

So, if your brand is looking to kickstart generating positive PR, here are some tips -

• Connect with professional audit services providing company.
• Get your websites tested for accessibility rankings with accessibility testing services.
• Upon positive results, create an accessibility statement on your website.
• Mention your brand?s constant commitments to make the website accessible.
• Let the audience know about other relevant details like complying with accessibility frameworks like WCAG.

The SEO Factor

Creating an accessible website is more than developing PR and market reach. What it does is make your site more usable. And that happens because the SEO gets a serious boost from it.

Yes, an accessible website is also a website that has good SEO rankings. Improved and boosted SEO means the brand starts getting more organic traffic.

There aren?t any written rules that guarantee ranking up in Google results. However, every marketer out there has a fair knowledge of how to get it done nevertheless.

What brands don?t know is that in many cases, SEO and web accessibility goals interconnect. Building websites with cleaner and easier navigation features help disabled people.

Two such common methods of developing SEO and web accessibility are transcription and closed captions.

So, how do they work as a common pillar?

• As per web accessibility standards, online audio and video content should have text equivalents. This is a vital requirement under web accessibility standards like WCAG.
• Google is a text-based search engine. So, it cannot search for audio and video in content that brands post. Now, these closed captions and transcripts also help SEO because they add texts to the content. As a result, the content is indexed and captured from the texts. Thus, it helps the audience reach your brand?s content quite easily.

The Content Usability Factor

Just like how SEO and web accessibility are interlinked, so are accessibility and usability.

Professional audit services check the website's accessibility and make them accessible for the specially abled by providing website accessibility services. Accessibility solutions make products and services more usable and accessible by the audience.

Thus, at some point, accessibility solutions are overlapping with content usability. What content usability does is that it aims to enhance the user experience of products or services.

So, how do they work as a common pillar this time?

• Popular web accessibility standards like WCAG implies websites be completely navigable through keyboards. It is because differently-abled people sometimes might face problems operating a computer mouse.
• Having content that is totally controllable by keyboard also benefits the broad user base. Completing this web accessibility from an accessibility audit services provider will help them locate contents easily. In fact, as the navigational elements are well-organized, they help regular users too. They can now find the option they need more easily.
• Also, using alternative text for images and different other objects in the website increases accessibility.
• These alternative texts are also helpful for visitors who have a slow net connection. They can now understand the content faster than before.

Besides these, having glossaries is helpful for every audience. They have acronyms, rare word synonyms, and technical terms. Not only do they help people with cognitive disabilities but also non-English speaking people.

Higher Quality Code

Websites that are created with accessibility concerns in mind usually have a higher quality code. Now, having a cleaner code brings some obvious benefits for the website users.

• The UI gets a smooth and refined touch.
• Bugs and glitches are rarely found.
• Loading time decreases considerably.

With these benefits, it is obvious that SEO will also improve. So, accessibility solutions are also like an investment for your brand in multiple ways.

Brands Must Know These Before Getting Audit Services

So, we have walked a long way trying to understand how accessibility services are important. On the way, we also came across reasons why auditing solutions are essential.

Now, before we finish the blog, let?s briefly talk about two important things.

Number 1: Why do Brands Need an Audit at all?

The first thing that brands should question themselves is - ?do we really need an accessibility audit??

If the answer is a ?yes,? then here the most valid possible reasons behind it -

• Brands might look for accessibility audit companies to find any caveats in their existing models.
• Connecting with auditors gives them peace of mind on legal and compliance matters.
• They need accessibility audit support that is comprehensive. After all, the company needs to follow your brand?s accessibility progress mainly.
• Brands want to find out potential accessibility risks in their website or application. They want to make sure that they meet the minimum requirements at least.
• It helps brands in acquiring new clients and satisfying them. By connecting with an accessibility audit services provider, they can generate a detailed report. It will help them gain confidence over their website in business deals as well.
• Getting an audit done will also show them why they need to update existing solutions. They can also have a clear idea about how their accessibility solutions fare in the modern world.

Number 2: How do Audit Companies Justify their Bills?

It can be quite confusing for companies to understand why there isn?t any fixed rate. So, basically, it all depends on the level of the audit.

?How deeply the auditing occurs, and how much documentation does it need?? Also, ?what is the expected overall work quality?? - all these affect the rate.

The most common reasons behind the fluctuating rates are -

• The complexity of the pages and the total numbers affect the costs. That is why audit companies first review your brand?s websites to give an average quote. Now, that quote varies from one website to another. The reason behind that remains the same in all cases.
• Next, it also depends on the number of platforms for which brands test their accessibility. Brands asking for a browser accessibility audit might not be the same as software accessibility costs. It all depends on how complex the assistive technologies are.
• It also depends on the complexity of the project and the number of failures. Connecting with a professional company can eliminate failing chances. Nevertheless, there can be other complexities as well. Brands need to understand that the costs come as a conclusion to the whole process.
• Sometimes, the accessibility audit report finds that there are minute issues. In such cases, it takes just a few hours for the company to write a report. But, for those websites that fail most of the WCAG guidelines, it can take up to weeks. Now, this factor also increases the amount greatly.

The Conclusion: Accessibility Audit is More about the Journey and Less about the Paperworks

Many times, brands think of hiring the cheapest audit companies. Well, they can get them easily without compromising with quality even. But is its importance only about getting that paperwork showing some data and complaints?

Brands need to understand that an accessibility audit isn?t about reading a blood test report. So, just by reading it and being happy or sad won?t make any change.

They need to boost themselves and as well as their teams to work on it. Showing their customers that they care for them is where the journey starts. That is why they need to choose a professional accessibility audit company. They need to connect with such a company who will guarantee them to improved audit results.