Why an Accessibility Widget for Your Website Isn’t Enough — and What to Do Instead

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Why an Accessibility Widget for Your Website Isn’t Enough — and What to Do Instead

Posted March 25, 2025

AudioEye

Posted March 25, 2025

Stylized web browser with an additional screen on top of it. Two bandaids are crossed overtop of the screen with the accessibility symbol in the middle.
Stylized web browser with an additional screen on top of it. Two bandaids are crossed overtop of the screen with the accessibility symbol in the middle.

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Accessibility widgets are often marketed as a quick fix for accessibility, enabling you to meet accessibility requirements without changing a single line of code. The reality is far from that. Learn why accessibility widgets aren’t enough for true accessibility and what the better options are.

Navigating accessibility laws and technical requirements can feel overwhelming, and you want to meet these standards with as little hassle as possible (an understandable desire). The challenge: Cutting corners or relying on subpar compliance solutions or accessibility tools doesn’t just put you at risk — it often leads to more headaches, increased legal risk, and more user frustration. More simply: subpar compliance is effectively non-compliance and comes with even more stress and friction. 

One of the most common shortcuts in the accessibility industry is accessibility widgets (also called accessibility overlays). While they promise hassle- and stress-free compliance, these tools come with serious limitations. They often fail to meet legal standards and even make your web pages and other digital content less accessible for users with disabilities. 

Below, you’ll learn why accessibility widgets aren’t the quick fix they claim to be, the risks they pose, and what true accessibility compliance looks like. Before we jump into that, a quick refresher on accessibility regulations.

Understanding Compliance: WCAG and Global Accessibility Regulations

At the core of digital accessibility are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the internationally recognized standard that defines how websites should be structured to be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust (known as the POUR principles). These principles are broken down into three levels of conformance:

  • Level A: This is the most basic level that addresses critical accessibility barriers like missing alt text or lack of captions.
  • Level AA: This is considered the standard for most legal requirements and addresses accessibility barriers like poor color contrast and keyboard navigability.
  • Level AAA; The most advanced level of accessibility, Level AAA is more difficult to meet and aims to provide an advanced level of accessibility (e.g., sign language interpretation for videos or higher color contrast ratios).

Different accessibility laws and regulations use WCAG as a compliance measurement, including:

  • The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): The U.S. Department of Justice has ruled that websites and all other forms of digital content must conform to the standards outlined in WCAG 2.1 Level AA to meet ADA compliance requirements.
  • Section 508: Section 508 mandates that federal agencies and vendors conform with WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standards. 
  • The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA): The AODA requires any public-facing website or web content meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards.
  • The European Accessibility Act (EAA): While the EAA does not mandate organizations follow WCAG standards, they do require content to be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust — similar to the POUR principles WCAG is organized around. However, implementing WCAG success criterion does provide a solid framework for EAA compliance.

With the accessibility regulations above in mind, let’s get into how accessibility widgets “help” meet compliance requirements and “create” accessible websites.

A stylized webpage that shows different content blocks being dragged into place, next to an accessibility symbol.

The Role of the Widget in Website Accessibility

What are Accessibility Widgets?

An accessibility widget (also called an accessibility overlay or accessibility plugin) is a software tool that adds accessibility features to a website without changing the underlying code. These widgets typically include customization options like text resizing, spacing adjustments, color contrast changes, screen reader support, and keyboard navigation enhancements to make website designs more accessible. Most use rule-based automation and JavaScript injections to change how content is presented to users rather than addressing accessibility issues at the code level.

That’s what appeals most to businesses: the idea of a quick, easy way to meet accessibility requirements. With most accessibility widgets marketed as one-click solutions that promise instant compliance with laws like the ADA and the EAA, it’s unsurprising website owners gravitate towards them. 

Yet, accessibility widgets and overlays have significant limitations, making them utterly unreliable as a true compliance solution. Most tools only modify the visual presentation of your web design rather than addressing deeper accessibility issues in a site’s structure, code, and content. 


Assistive technology users, for example, may still struggle to navigate a site if it lacks the proper semantic HTML and ARIA widgets — both of which are issues that accessibility widgets can’t fix. Worse, some widgets can interfere with assistive technologies, making the experience more frustrating for users rather than improving it.

Widget or Overlay vs. Complete Digital Accessibility Solutions

As mentioned above, accessibility widgets have fundamental limitations that prevent them from helping you meet accessibility requirements. They focus primarily on front-end adjustments, such as changing text size, adjusting color contrast ratios, or enabling screen reader mode. While these can improve accessibility and usability slightly, these small customizations do not address the underlying — and more serious — accessibility issues. At best, widgets provide minor usability improvements for some users, but at worst, they create a false sense of accessibility.

That’s where a digital accessibility solution comes into play. These solutions go beyond surface-level fixes by integrating automation, expert audits, and additional accessibility testing tools into a single platform. Some platforms use AI-driven technology to identify common violations with WCAG, provide detailed reports, and offer accessibility fixes that address issues at the source. More importantly, complete digital accessibility solutions incorporate human expertise — accessibility specialists who can evaluate complex issues that automation alone might miss. Additionally, accessibility solutions work within a single database and ecosystem, ensuring compliance efforts are systematic, trackable, and scalable over time — something widgets don’t do.

To better understand the difference between widgets and accessibility solutions, let’s look at a few examples:

Image Accessibility

A widget may allow users to turn on AI-generated alt text (also called alternative text, which is a written description of non-text content like images, graphs, or charts), but these descriptions are often generic, inaccurate, misleading, or missed altogether. 

An accessibility solution can identify missing alt text, giving accessibility experts the chance to write, review, or add accurate descriptions. This enhances accessibility for users with visual impairments or disabilities and ensures compliance site-wide.

Form Accessibility

Widgets can alter form colors or add a “high contrast” mode (which is beneficial for users who are color blind) but can’t fix an improperly labeled form field. Left unresolved, forms may be completely inaccessible for screen reader users. 


An accessibility audit (usually included with comprehensive accessibility platforms) would detect those missing labels, flag them for correction, and provide guidance or automated fixes to improve form accessibility and ensure all users can interact with it.

Ongoing Compliance Monitoring

Because accessibility widgets are marketed as a ‘one-time fix,’ they do not offer the much-needed visibility into compliance gaps beyond the superficial adjustments they make. More importantly, they don’t provide ongoing monitoring to ensure continued compliance. Accessibility solutions do, continuously scanning for new accessibility issues, ensuring your site complies with accessibility standards. Plus, with the help of accessibility experts, you can better navigate evolving accessibility laws and better understand what accessibility requirements you need to meet. 

The bottom line: to be serious about digital accessibility, you can’t take shortcuts. Investing in a full accessibility platform ensures that compliance isn’t just a checkbox — it’s a continuous, proactive process that improves the user experience and reduces your legal risk.

An empty form on a landing page, with an accessibility symbol in the lower left corner.

What Does a Comprehensive Website Accessibility Plan Look Like?

Here’s the bottom line: true accessibility does not happen with quick fixes. Creating digital content that is truly accessible, usable, and compliant means moving beyond surface-level solutions like widgets and overlays for comprehensive accessibility platforms. The best accessibility platforms — the ones that actually help you create compliant content — combines automation and expert-driven testing. 

Automation gets you started with accessibility, scanning your website for common WCAG violations and providing actionable steps on how to fix them. Some accessibility platforms can even fix found issues automatically, streamlining your path to creating more accessible, compliant content. However, automation alone isn’t enough. That’s where Expert Audits come in. 

Accessibility experts dive deeper into your site, reviewing more complex elements, such as interactive components, multimedia content, user workflows, assistive technology compatibility, and more. They ensure that these functionalities aren’t just present but also that they work seamlessly for all users. The combination of automation and human oversight creates a scalable approach to accessibility, one that doesn’t just check a compliance box but actively improves usability.


Take AudioEye for example. We take a three-pronged approach to accessibility, combining automation and human-assisted AI technology to detect and fix accessibility issues. Our approach starts with a free accessibility scan that identifies 30 WCAG violations (more than any other tool on the market) which our Automated Accessibility Platform then fixes. AudioEye goes a step further, supplementing automation with Expert Audits from members of the disability community to identify more complex accessibility issues. The result: an accessible, compliant site at a fraction of the cost and in half the time as other accessibility platforms.

More Than a Widget: AudioEye for Comprehensive Accessibility and Assured Compliance

Accessibility widgets might seem like an easy fix, but their limitations make them virtually ineffective in achieving true accessibility and compliance. The surface-level adjustments leave most accessibility barriers unaddressed, frustrating users, excluding customers, and increasing your chances of legal action. 

True accessibility and compliance with laws requires a comprehensive platform that combines automation, expert audits, and ongoing monitoring to ensure your website conforms with WCAG standards and legal requirements. That platform? AudioEye.

With AudioEye’s comprehensive Automated Accessibility Platform, achieving industry-leading compliance with accessibility standards (including the ADA, EAA, and AODA) is fast, easy, and cost-effective. Our three-pronged approach saves up to 90% in costs compared to traditional fix-at-source approaches and offers 400% better legal protection than consulting or automation-only approaches. 

Go beyond surface-level fixes and achieve a level of accessibility that doesn’t just provide a great user experience but enables you to effortlessly meet compliance standards. Get started with a free accessibility scan. 


Want to see AudioEye’s scalable, comprehensive approach to accessibility in action? Schedule a demo.

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