There are plugins that can be helpful in making your website accessible.
And some can even add benefit as options- having accessibility options available on your website, but they don’t make your website accessible or what many people are looking, for ADA compliant.
Although we don’t know what ADA compliance exactly is when it comes to accessibility, we can be certain that it is not as simple as installing or uploading a plugin for accessibility.
And I oftentimes lump together widget, overlay, plugin, etc. when dismissing accessibility overlays because I want to dispel the notion that there is this instant solution for accessibility, that all you need to do is upload and activate an accessibility plugin and you have taken care of your “ADA compliance” or you have major website accessible – you haven’t.
But plugins can have their place, they can help you- they can help you with accessibility on some elements or components of your website.
They can provide a means for someone to toggle and increase the text size or change the text font, etc.
There’s nothing wrong with having a plugin.
Where you- where you go on the wrong path is where you rely upon a plugin and nothing else.
And plugins can- they’re very limited, they can only do so many things and even at that you wouldn’t- they wouldn’t make your website WCAG conformant.
And they’re going to miss many, many things because with accessibility you really do need to pay attention to the different issues one at a time and it can’t be solved through any automated means.
And you might think that there’s this technology out there that can remediate your website and just do everything with one click or within a few hours or whatever it is – that’s not the case.
And so when I say overlays, overlays are something you can install it’s code that you can install on your website you can embed it on your website there will be something like a clickable icon you can click that icon and accessibility options will become available and it will- your website will be rendered in a different way depending on which options you choose.
And with the- with the purported result that it will make your website accessible or ADA compliant.
It’s not the case, they don’t work and they’re-
You’re hearing me say this and this is in direct this is directly opposing what is on these vendors website the overlay vendors websites, they’re claiming that they can make your website ADA compliant, WCAG conformant – it’s not true.
But plugins can have benefit and so plugins again, I’m distinguishing them.
A plugin is something you do- it’s something you can install where you are maybe it might- it might help with one aspect of accessibility or it may offer options with that some people can use for accessibility, but a plugin is never going to be the ultimate solution to your accessibility.
The only true solution to accessibility is through remediation, is through filtering to your content and making sure that accessibility considerations are made, and code level remediation – that’s what you need for a true accessibility.
So when you’re looking for a plugin what you’re really looking for is a quick fix and that’s that is not available and it doesn’t matter which plugin it doesn’t matter how much artificial intelligence that they say they have.
There is nothing. There is nothing and I- I there’s I’ve looked through everything, I promise you there is nothing out there, there is no product, there’s no software, there’s no app, there’s no plugin, there’s no widget, there’s no overlay that can solve for accessibility, that can make your website “ADA compliant.”
Anybody that says that there is is telling you a lie, there’s not. But it’s again I’m not saying there isn’t some benefit I’m not saying that plugins, in some instances when you’re using the right plugin, you can’t do anything they can, but it’s not the end solution to what you want.