Abstract
Current laws and directives such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the European Union’s Directive 2016/2102 aim to support people with disabilities. At the same time, they also represent a challenge for many website owners who have to comply with these legal requirements. Providers of so-called overlay tools offer, among other things, fully automated solutions which, according to their own statements, can be installed within a few minutes and subsequently improve the website in such a way that it is accessible and compliant with the laws and standards. This raises two questions. First, to what extent overlay tools provide real accessibility improvements? And second, is it possible to identify possibilities and limitations and therefore suggest potential improvements. Based on a comparison of the features of nine existing tools, three were selected for closer examination (accessiBe, EqualWeb and UserWay). In addition, a comparative study of these providers was conducted. For this purpose, a total of seven metrics were defined, which are based on the information and promises of the providers as well as on the requirements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1. To validate the changes made by the overlay tools, the adaptations were evaluated using 29 of the 92 test steps of the BIK BITV-Test. Moreover, the site owner’s perspective was taken into account and the corresponding features and functions were analyzed and evaluated within four metrics. However, user tests are not part of this work. Significant differences between the overlay tools can be seen primarily in the adjustments to the actual website. In comparison, accessiBe corrects more failures and barriers for blind users and users who use the keyboard navigation and thus also achieves the best result in the overall score. Despite these improvements, full compliance is clearly not possible. However, both theoretical and concrete opportunities for improvement were identified.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For the purposes of this paper, a “failure” is an accessibility issue that does not meet the requirements of WCAG 2.1 and EN 301 549.
- 2.
All three overlay tools (accessiBe, EqualWeb and UserWay) offer a toolbar, which can be opened on the client’s page by a button. There, options can be activated, for example to adjust the appearance of the page.
- 3.
These are own translations, the original German terms are: “nicht erfüllt”, “eher nicht erfüllt”, “teilweise erfüllt”, “eher erfüllt” and „erfüllt”. In addition, the “eher erfüllt” (rather conforming) level also meets the requirements of WCAG 2.1 and EN 301 549.
References
Statistisches Bundesamt: 7,9 Millionen schwerbehinderte Menschen leben in Deutschland (2020). https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2020/06/PD20_230_227.html. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
Statistisches Bundesamt: Bis 2035 wird die Zahl der Menschen ab 67 Jahre um 22% steigen (2021). https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2021/09/PD21_459_12411.html. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union: Directive (EU) 2016/2102 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 October 2016 on the accessibility of the websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies (Text with EEA relevance) (2016)
The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union: Directive (EU) 2019/882 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on the accessibility requirements for products and services (Text with EEA relevance) (2019)
Seyfarth Shaw LLP: 2019 Was Another Record-Breaking Year for Federal ADA Title III Lawsuits (2020). https://www.adatitleiii.com/2020/02/2019-was-another-record-breaking-year-for-federal-ada-title-iii-lawsuits/. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
accessible: https://accessibe.com/. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
Overlay Fact Sheet: Overlay Fact Sheet (2021). https://overlayfactsheet.com. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
Groves, K.: Sole reliance on accessiBe will not be sufficient in ensuring full and equal access to a website (2020). https://de.scribd.com/document/490740167/Exhibit-A-for-21-cv-00017. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
Faulkner, S.: Bolt-on Accessibility – 5 gears in reverse (2020). https://www.tpgi.com/bolt-on-accessibility-5-gears-in-reverse/. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
German federal ministry of labour and social affairs: Verordnung zur Schaffung barrierefreier Informationstechnik nach dem Behindertengleichstellungsgesetz (Barrierefreie¬Informationstechnik-Verordnung -BITV 2.0) (2019)
DIAS GmbH: Die BITV 2.0 – Was prüft der BITV-Test, was prüft er nicht?. https://www.bitvtest.de/bitv_test/das_testverfahren_im_detail/vertiefend/die_bitv_20_was_prueft_der_bitv_test_was_prueft_er_nicht.html. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
DIAS GmbH: Überarbeitung von Prüfschritten im Jahr 2021. https://www.bitvtest.de/bitv_test/das_testverfahren_im_detail/vertiefend/ueberarbeitung/2021.html. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
DIAS GmbH: Beschreibung des Prüfverfahrens. https://www.bitvtest.de/bitv_test/das_testverfahren_im_detail/verfahren.html. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
DIAS GmbH: BITV-Selbstbewertung. https://www.bitvtest.de/bitv_test/bitv_test_selbst_anwenden/selbstbewertung.html. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
Groves, K.: overlay factsheet. https://github.com/karlgroves/overlayfactsheet (2021). Accessed 30 Oct 2021
Henry, B.: Accessibility Overlays in Digital Content. https://www.tpgi.com/accessibility-overlays-in-digital-content/ (2020). Accessed 30 Oct 2021
Kornmeier, T.: Not All Accessibility Overlays Are Created Equal. https://www.deque.com/blog/not-all-accessibility-overlays-are-created-equal/ (2020). Accessed 30 Oct 2021
AudioEye: https://www.audioeye.com/. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
DIGIaccess: https://digiaccess.org/. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
EqualWeb: https://www.equalweb.com/. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
FACIL’iti: https://www.facil-iti.com/. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
MaxAccess: https://maxaccess.io/. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
Purple-Lens: https://purple-lens.com/. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
UserWay. https://userway.org/. Last accessed 2021/10/30
User1st: https://www.user1st.com/. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
DIAS GmbH: Werkzeugliste. https://www.bitvtest.de/bitv_test/das_testverfahren_im_detail/werkzeugliste.html. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
W3C: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/ (2018). Accessed 30 Oct 2021
W3C: Understanding Success Criterion 2.3.1: Three Flashes or Below Threshold. https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/three-flashes-or-below-threshold.html. Accessed 30 Oct 2021
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Egger, N., Zimmermann, G., Strobbe, C. (2022). Overlay Tools as a Support for Accessible Websites – Possibilities and Limitations. In: Miesenberger, K., Kouroupetroglou, G., Mavrou, K., Manduchi, R., Covarrubias Rodriguez, M., Penáz, P. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP-AAATE 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13342. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08645-8_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08645-8_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-08644-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-08645-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)