It has been over a year since the European Accessibility Act (EAA) came into effect, and many organizations are still discovering gaps in the accessibility of their digital services. While websites, mobile apps, e-commerce platforms and digital banking services may meet recognized accessibility requirements, technical conformance alone does not always guarantee an accessible user experience.
People using assistive technologies can still encounter barriers such as confusing workflows, unclear error messages, or content that is difficult to interpret with screen readers.
Vice President of Solution Delivery and Accessibility at Applause.
Accessibility is increasingly viewed as an indicator of digital quality, rather than just a compliance obligation. Yet, making sure that digital experiences work for everyone requires more than good intentions. It depends on assessments, audits and real-world testing to validate accessibility in practice.
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This challenge is especially significant for technology companies, where accessibility cannot be addressed by focusing on a single website or application. Instead, it must be managed across portfolios of products, development teams and release cycles.
This requires a continuous approach to accessibility, underpinned by a comprehensive accessibility ecosystem that combines assessments, audits, automated testing and insights from people with disabilities throughout the software development lifecycle.
Accessibility assessments and audits
Improving accessibility begins with understanding where barriers exist and how they affect users. Accessibility assessments provide a high-level view of accessibility risks, helping organizations identify priority issues early and determine where additional investigation is needed.
These assessments can combine automated tools with targeted manual reviews of designs and/or products to offer guidance on where organizations should focus their accessibility efforts for impactful quality improvement.
Accessibility audits take this process a step further. They provide a comprehensive evaluation of digital products against recognized standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.2) and the EAA, documenting accessibility issues, their severity and recommended remediation steps.
Unlike assessments, audits systematically evaluate entire products or services to validate conformance and propose a clear remediation roadmap. They may also go beyond websites and applications to include customer-facing digital content such as PDFs, presentations and other documents that are subject to accessibility legislation.
Together, assessments and audits establish a foundation for an effective accessibility program. However, simply demonstrating technical compliance does not necessarily guarantee a positive user experience. Individuals using assistive technologies may still encounter barriers that automated checks and standards-based testing cannot detect.
Therefore, audits should form part of a more comprehensive accessibility strategy, complemented by expert evaluation and feedback from people with disabilities.
Why real-world insights matter
Automated accessibility testing tools have become an important part of modern software development. They quickly identify common coding issues, such as missing alternative text, inadequate color contrast and incorrect heading structures, helping teams resolve straightforward problems earlier in development.
These tools also integrate easily into CI/CD pipelines, making them an effective way to catch basic accessibility issues before software is released.
AI is expanding what these tools can do. It can help recognize patterns, group similar issues and recommend possible fixes, thereby reducing repetitive work for development teams. However, AI cannot replace human judgement; machine-generated fixes may be inaccurate, address only superficial issues or create a false sense of accessibility if the underlying user experience has not been properly evaluated.
Indeed, even with these advances, automated testing has its limits. As the W3C notes, “web accessibility evaluation tools cannot determine accessibility, they can only assist in doing so.” They cannot determine whether link text makes sense out of context, whether keyboard focus follows a logical order or how someone using a screen reader experiences a user journey.
While automated tools can highlight symptoms, they lack the human context needed to understand the full impact on usability.
This is why effective accessibility programs combine automated testing with manual expert reviews and testing by people with disabilities who rely on assistive technologies every day. Together, these approaches provide a more complete understanding of how people experience digital products, helping organizations identify accessibility barriers that automated testing alone may miss.
Building an accessibility ecosystem
Organizations should view accessibility as an ongoing capability rather than a one-off project with a fixed endpoint. Instead of depending solely on periodic audits, they need to create an accessibility ecosystem that integrates inclusive practices throughout the development process.
An effective ecosystem brings together developers, designers, accessibility specialists, automated testing tools and people with disabilities in a continuous feedback loop. By including accessibility considerations in planning, design, development, testing and release, organizations can identify and address barriers throughout the development process.
This reduces the effort required to resolve accessibility issues and helps avoid delays that can happen when problems emerge during final compliance checks.
How Microsoft moved beyond compliance
Several technology companies have already built accessibility ecosystems based on these principles. Microsoft, for example, has applied these principles at scale across its Cloud & AI portfolio, which includes more than 1,000 products.
Rather than treating accessibility as a compliance exercise, the company adopted inclusive design research by involving people with disabilities throughout the product lifecycle. As of 2024, this initiative has helped more than 50 product teams improve the inclusivity of products such as Azure and Power Apps, while changing the focus from simply meeting accessibility requirements to creating digital experiences that work well for everyone.
Cisco shifted accessibility left
Since 2022, Cisco has adopted a similar approach with Webex by embedding accessibility and inclusive design throughout the software development lifecycle. By involving individuals with disabilities earlier in the design and testing process and creating continuous feedback loops across development teams, Webex was able to resolve accessibility challenges sooner.
This approach also built greater empathy, collaboration and organizational understanding around inclusive product development.
Progress Software reduced accessibility issues by 60%
Progress Software has been following a comprehensive accessibility program for its client collaboration platform ShareFile since 2023. By combining expert accessibility reviews, testing by people with disabilities and AI-assisted code evaluation, the company reduced accessibility issues by more than 60 per cent year over year.
This investment in accessibility also strengthened customer retention and helped secure new business, reflecting the growing importance of accessibility in software procurement decisions.
Accessibility as a measure of software quality
The EAA has intensified the focus on digital accessibility, but its influence extends beyond just compliance, encouraging organizations to make accessibility an integral part of software development.
Assessments highlight accessibility risks, audits validate compliance with recognized standards, and real-world testing reveals how individuals using assistive technologies experience digital products in practice. Collectively, these activities provide organizations with the evidence and insights required to improve accessibility throughout the development process.
For organizations creating complex digital products, accessibility has become an important indicator of software quality. By embedding accessibility into everyday development practices, organizations can deliver digital experiences that are more inclusive and usable for everyone, while also reducing the cost and complexity of addressing accessibility barriers later in the development process.
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