Your Website Just Became a Legal Liability

Web Accessibility Isn't Optional Anymore

Accessibility lawsuits continue to hit record numbers. Over 4,000 ADA-related digital lawsuits were filed in the US in 2024 alone. If your website can't be navigated with a keyboard, read by a screen reader, or used by someone with a visual impairment -- you're excluding roughly 26% of US adults who live with a disability. And you're exposed legally.

We build and remediate websites to meet WCAG 2.2 AA standards. Not with overlay widgets that don't actually work. With real, structural accessibility baked into the code from the ground up.

What WCAG and ADA Compliance Actually Means

Let's cut through the noise. WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is the technical standard. ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) is the law. Courts consistently interpret ADA Title III to apply to websites, and they point to WCAG 2.1 AA (now moving toward 2.2) as the benchmark.

WCAG is organized around four principles -- POUR:

• Perceivable: Content must be presentable in ways all users can perceive. Think alt text, captions, sufficient color contrast.
• Operable: Every interaction must work via keyboard, with enough time, no seizure-inducing animations.
• Understandable: Content must be readable and predictable. Form errors need clear explanations.
• Robust: Content must work with current and future assistive technologies.

Meeting AA means hitting all Level A and Level AA success criteria -- roughly 55 individual checkpoints across these four principles.

Why Overlay Widgets Don't Cut It

You've seen the pitch: drop a JavaScript widget on your site and become "ADA compliant." Here's the reality -- the National Federation of the Blind has actively opposed overlay products. Multiple lawsuits have been filed against companies using overlays. They don't fix the underlying HTML structure, they often break screen reader functionality, and they create a segregated experience.

Real accessibility lives in your markup, your component architecture, and your content strategy. There's no shortcut.

Our Approach to Accessibility

Audit First, Fix Smart

Every engagement starts with a thorough accessibility audit. We combine automated scanning with manual testing -- because automated tools catch maybe 30-40% of WCAG issues. The rest requires human judgment.

Our audit process:

1. Automated scanning with axe-core and Lighthouse across every unique page template
2. Manual keyboard navigation testing -- tabbing through every interactive element
3. Screen reader testing with NVDA and VoiceOver across actual user flows
4. Color contrast analysis for all text, icons, and interactive states
5. Content review for heading hierarchy, link text, form labels, and error handling
6. ARIA implementation review -- checking for misuse that actually makes things worse

You get a prioritized report with every issue mapped to a specific WCAG criterion, severity level, and a concrete fix.

Remediation and Rebuild

Depending on the state of your codebase, we either remediate the existing site or rebuild key components. Our headless architecture approach with Next.js and Astro gives us fine-grained control over the HTML output -- something monolithic CMS platforms often make difficult.

Typical remediation work includes:

• Semantic HTML restructuring -- replacing div soup with proper landmarks, headings, lists, and buttons
• ARIA attribute implementation where native HTML semantics fall short
• Focus management for SPAs, modals, and dynamic content
• Skip navigation links and logical tab order
• Accessible form patterns with proper labels, descriptions, and live error announcements
• Responsive and zoom-friendly layouts that don't break at 200% zoom
• Reduced motion support via prefers-reduced-motion media queries
• Image alt text strategy and decorative image handling

Accessible Component Libraries

For new builds, we architect component libraries with accessibility as a first-class requirement. Every component ships with:

• Correct ARIA roles and states
• Keyboard interaction patterns matching WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices
• High contrast mode support
• Screen reader announcements for dynamic state changes
• Automated accessibility tests in the CI/CD pipeline

We use Radix UI primitives and custom headless components that give us unstyled, accessible foundations to build on. No fighting a UI framework's accessibility bugs.

CMS Content Guardrails

Accessibility breaks when content editors upload images without alt text or paste in low-contrast text. We configure your headless CMS -- whether that's Sanity, Contentful, Storyblok, or WordPress -- with validation rules and required fields that make it hard to publish inaccessible content.

Think required alt text fields, heading level enforcement, and link text validation. Your editors become part of the accessibility solution instead of the problem.

What You Get

• VPAT / ACR documentation -- a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template that maps your product against every WCAG 2.2 AA criterion. Required for government and enterprise contracts.
• Prioritized remediation roadmap -- not just a list of problems, but a sequenced plan based on impact and legal risk.
• Accessible codebase -- whether remediated or rebuilt, your site's HTML output will be clean, semantic, and standards-compliant.
• Ongoing monitoring -- we set up automated accessibility testing in your deployment pipeline so regressions get caught before they ship.
• Team training -- your developers and content editors learn how to maintain accessibility standards going forward.

The Technology Behind Accessible Builds

Our stack is chosen specifically because it gives us control over output markup:

• Next.js and Astro produce clean, semantic HTML. Server-side rendering means content is available before JavaScript loads -- critical for assistive tech.
• axe-core integrated into CI/CD catches regressions automatically.
• Storybook with a11y addon lets us test components in isolation during development.
• Radix UI provides unstyled, WAI-ARIA compliant primitives for complex widgets like dialogs, tabs, and comboboxes.
• Tailwind CSS with custom configurations for focus-visible states, high contrast support, and reduced motion.

Accessibility Is a Competitive Advantage

Beyond legal compliance, accessible websites perform better. Semantic HTML improves SEO. Keyboard navigability improves usability for power users. Captions increase video engagement. Clear content structure reduces bounce rates.

Companies bidding on government contracts need a VPAT. Enterprise procurement increasingly requires accessibility documentation. Being compliant opens doors that stay closed to competitors who treat accessibility as an afterthought.

Stop Treating Accessibility as a Checkbox

The worst time to think about accessibility is after a demand letter arrives. The best time is now -- before it's a crisis and while it's still a strategic advantage. Whether you need a full audit of your existing site, remediation of known issues, or a ground-up accessible rebuild, we do the work that actually matters: fixing the code, not slapping a widget on it.