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Silktide are proud to announce the launch of our free Silktide Accessibility Checker, to commemorate Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD).

This free Chrome and Edge extension transforms how easily developers, content creators, and website owners can test for web accessibility.

The Silktide Accessibility Checker can perform comprehensive audits against more than 200 web accessibility checks, simplifying the process of making websites compliant with the latest WCAG 2.2 guidelines.

What can it do?

• Automated checks: Tests web pages against WCAG 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2 guidelines
• Designed for everybody: clear, actionable reports that make resolving issues straightforward
• Mobile and tablet simulations: Test across devices including desktop, tablet, and mobile
• Comprehensive help: Detailed guides and videos to help users understand and rectify issues quickly
• Screen reader simulator: Experience a screen reader without having to install one
• Color contrast checker: Test if your color contrast is sufficient
• Innovative simulations: Various disability simulators to enhance empathy and understanding

Why should I use an accessibility checker?

Web accessibility helps make sure your website is usable by as many people as possible, regardless of their ability. In becoming accessible, you open your web content to as many people as possible.

Increasingly this is becoming a fundamental human right. There are many accessibility laws globally that mandate a minimum level of accessibility.

Regular accessibility auditing is key, but it can be quite a challenging topic to learn. That’s why we created this easy-to-understand free tool – to help you understand the fundamentals of web accessibility.

How is this better than other accessibility checkers?

There are plenty of accessibility checkers, but we’ve been consistently frustrated by how difficult they are to use. Most are designed by developers, for developers.

We decided we could do better.

Our checker purposely is built on the best features we’ve found from others, with a focus on ease of use.

We also decided to make one of the most elusive aspects of web accessibility more available to non-experts. Our Accessibility Checker includes a screen reader simulator, which allows users to test for a screen reader experience without the pain of having to pay for, install, and learn one.

How to install

Visit the Chrome store to install the browser extension. It’s compatible with Chrome and Edge browsers.

Overview

About Silktide

Silktide is the web intelligence company helping businesses and organizations make their websites better.

We’re committed to enhancing the accessibility of the web. Our tools are designed to help people create a more inclusive digital space, ensuring that everyone, regardless of ability, can enjoy all that the web has to offer.

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We’re pleased to announce that access to all Silktide AI features is no longer limited to a given number of requests.

All customers now have unlimited number* of credits for the following AI features:

• Ask AI Ask AI for help solving a problem with a specific webpage
• Improve UX Ask AI for help improving the User Experience of a specific webpage

Learn what AI can do for your website

Check our our recent webinar series on AI:

How AI will revolutionize accessibility – Silktide

How AI is transforming web design – Silktide

How AI will revolutionize web governance – Silktide

The small print

*Use of all Silktide AI features is subject to fair use. If we detect any abusive use of AI, we reserve the right to limit or discontinue access to it at our discretion.

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We’re delighted to announce that as of today, all customers can use the Silktide platform in any of the following languages.

• English (US)
• English (UK)
• Spanish
• German
• French
• Canadian French
• Italian
• Norwegian (Bokmål)
• Swedish
• Danish
• Dutch
• Finnish
• Japanese

You can access these languages inside your account, by clicking on your user menu, and clicking Settings. Or you can ask your Silktide contact to update the default language for your whole account.

A radical new approach to translation

It is usually considered best practice not to translate your software too early, as doing so slows down product development. After translation, every feature you release requires more testing, translation, and cost.

This wasn’t acceptable to us. Silktide is still in the early phase of our product vision. So we needed a way to support more languages without development being slowed down.

To do this, we pioneered the use of a new AI-augmented translation framework.

By leveraging the power of modern LLMs (Large Language Models), Silktide has been able to automate the production of high quality translations. We can release new features, and have AI-generated translations immediately available at launch, without introducing any delays.

Crucially though, we still keep humans in the loop. Our staff and our community can review and improve our translations in real time – without even needing to deploy a new release of our software.

How this is revolutionary

Traditional machine translations are poor. Normally, relying on automated translation would result in an unacceptably poor experience.

But with LLMs, machine translation has advanced dramatically. A key part of our new design was to embed our translatable text with context, such as “The following text is for buttons. Buttons should be short, and be expressed consistently.”

With context, we are able to dramatically improve how well both AI and humans can translate without a laborious back-and-forth testing process. Previous AI had no capacity to do this.

We’re also able to use AI to double-check the output of the AI. For example, we can feed screenshots of our application into a vision-based model, and have it assess whether the text makes sense in context.

The future

These languages are just the start of what Silktide will eventually support. With our new technology, we’re able to add more languages more easily than is normally considered possible.

We have a lot more planned for Silktide this year, including many new applications of AI, so stay tuned.

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No, really. You can make a start with web accessibility by using free accessibility tools.

We’ll show you how you can check a page on your site for web accessibility problems for free, and explain some fundamental concepts that you might not know.

What you’ll need to follow along:

• the Silktide accessibility checker, a free Chrome extension
• an example web page to check, we’ll use our testing website fake-university.com

What this article will help you check:

• Over 200 individual WCAG accessibility checks
• Color contrast checker
• Alt text
• Headings
• Screen reader simulator
• Focus order
• Landmarks
• Impaired vision simulator
• Color blindness simulator
• Dyslexia simulator

Prefer this blog in video form? Here’s the video from YouTube.

What is web accessibility?

Good web accessibility makes your website as easy to use as possible for everybody. This includes people with visual impairments, who might rely on assistive technologies like a screen reader to read the page contents.

People with a motor impairment might use a keyboard instead of a mouse to navigate a website.

Other people might prefer to use a mobile device for all their web browsing, so your websites should be responsive and compatible.

Some people might be in a situation that makes it harder to see their device, like bright sunlight.

The solutions to these problems (ensuring keyboard compatibility, mobile responsiveness, and readability through sufficient text contrast) benefit everybody.

Ultimately, web accessibility means web usability. So the more usable your website is, the more people can use it and get the information they need, or make the purchase they need.

By checking your web accessibility, you’ll find and fix these usability barriers that prevent people from completing the tasks they need to on your site. This reduces your support burden and increases your conversion rates. All public sector bodies and, depending on your location and industry, most private sector bodies are subject to web accessibility legislation.

Let’s look at how you can check your web accessibility for free.

Step by step: check web accessibility for free with Silktide’s accessibility checker

Now that we have some background, let’s dig into some practicalities of checking your web page’s accessibility.

1) Install the Silktide accessibility checker

Navigate to the Silktide Accessibility Checker on the Chrome web store and click the “Add to Chrome’ button.

Next, click the jigsaw in the Chrome extensions bar and pin Silktide so you can easily access it.

2) Run the accessibility check

Choose a page you want to test for accessibility problems and open it in your browser. We’ll choose our testing website, fake-university.com.

Click the Silktide Chrome extension icon, and the accessibility checker tool panel will open.

There’s a range of free accessibility tools available that help you check different aspects of your web page. The Silktide free accessibility checker contains over 200 WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines – video) tests in an easy-to-understand format. You can work through each and we’d recommend starting with the Accessibility checker.

• Accessibility checker
• Color contrast checker
• Alt text
• Screen reader simulator
• Focus order
• Landmarks
• Impaired vision simulator
• Color blindness simulator
• Dyslexia simulator

3) Work through each section in the accessibility checker

The accessibility checker gives you over 200 free accessibility checks. After a brief scan of your web page, you’ll see the panel populate with a list of problems in order of severity.

Before we delve into each issue, take a look at what’s included here. At the top of the panel, you’ll see a dropdown menu with the option to preview the web page on desktop, tablet, or mobile devices. This gives you a quick overview of how your site displays on different devices.

Below this are the filters for the types of check and the WCAG standard.

• Automated: Checks which Silktide carries out with a distinct pass/fail
• Assisted: Checks which Silktide can alert you to check manually, but does not give a definitive pass/fail

For now, we’ll leave everything as it is and choose one of the checks to look at. Each issue type can be expanded with a click, and you’ll see the problem highlighted on the page

In our case, we’ll look at the list of color contrast failures.

An example: Color contrast check

For our test website, all the links in the footer fail color contrast requirements, with a much too light gray color on the light grey background.

So the accessibility checker highlights each of these on the page for you and explains:

• what the problem is
• why it’s a problem
• how to fix it.

The left-hand panel gives you the explanations and the guidance you need. We’ve made a big effort to make everything easy to understand because WCAG is a tough subject.

In this case, the suggestion is to darken the footer link text.

This is important because people with moderate visual impairments, or those looking at their screen in bright sunlight, won’t be able to read the links.

Another example – “Read more” links

Screen reader users may skip through your website listening only to the links. If each link has the same text but points to a different destination, and also has non-descriptive text like ‘Read more’, this leads to a poor user experience.

In an example like the screenshot below, which lists multiple blog posts in a grid each with an identical ‘Read more’ link text, the screen reader will read out “‘Read more – Link’, ‘Read more – Link’, ‘Read more – Link'”.

Listening to that, you would have no idea where each link leads.

The problem is solved by using descriptive link text or context-giving ARIA labels, which are not visible but are read out by screen readers.

These are just two of many examples. Each check in the Silktide Accessibility Checker has a description of the problem and how to solve it, so you’ll be able to learn about these problems as you work through each page.

4) Check color contrast

High-contrast text is easier for people to read. WCAG gives some guidelines as to how contrasting it must be.

You can check any two colors by hex code.

You can type them in or use the color pickers to choose two colors from anywhere on your screen.

5) Review your image alt text

Alternative text (‘alt text’) is used by screen reader users to read out descriptive content of the contents of an image. It’s incredibly useful, and also necessary in some cases.

For example, let’s say you have a graph on the page, but no supporting text content. The image contains useful information (the graph data) that can’t be accessed by someone who can’t see it.

We’ve written a whole blog on when to use alt text, how to use it, and importantly, when not to use it.

The alt text tool in the Silktide Accessibility checker lets you easily see where the images are on the site, which ones have alt text and what it is, and also which ones are missing alt text entirely. It also alerts you to missing alt tags, which are required in HTML for images, even if the image is decorative.

Silktide helps you decide whether the alt text is decorative, useful, or irrelevant, with the support help content shown on the left menu. Because everything is laid out visually, it’s easy to see what’s happening on your page without looking at the code or in your CMS for each image.

6) Review the focus order for keyboard navigation

People can navigate through a website using their keyboard. A combination of TAB and SHIFT + TAB lets you move forward and back through the page.

Your website must be built so that when navigating with a keyboard, the order is logical.

The Focus Order check gives you a visual representation of how your website’s navigation order is laid out, without you having to manually tab through the whole page. You need it to be consistent and logical. Also, you must ensure nothing is missed out.

Our test website has some pretty egregious focus order errors, one of which is highlighted below. The image shows what looks like three images. However, there are actually 6 images, which you can tab through with a keyboard. The order of tabbing does not follow what’s on the page visually.

This is a direct copy of a real website we found in the wild. Don’t try this at home!

7) Review landmarks

Landmarks on a web page are like signs in a building that help everyone find their way around. Imagine if you walked into a library and there were no signs for the different sections. It would be tough to find the books you want, right? Well, landmarks do the same job but for websites. They help organize the website so that it’s easier for everyone to find what they’re looking for, especially for people who use special tools to read the screen because they can’t see it.

Just like how signs in a building are made for everyone to understand, landmarks on a web page need to be set up so computers can understand them too. This helps people who use keyboards to navigate through a website easily, jump over parts they’re not interested in, and find the sections they want.

Silktide highlights the landmarks on a page so you can quickly understand where they are.

7) Use the screen reader simulator

The screen reader simulator is designed to give you a basic understanding of how a screen reader might work. You already have a ‘real’ screen reader built into your phone.

Ours is not designed as a replacement, but simply a tool for beginners to understand how they work (and how they might work on your web page).

Start by opening the screen reader panel and navigating through your page using the left and right arrow keys.

You’ll hear each element being read out. It probably won’t be long before you hear something that doesn’t make sense, or even not hear something you were expecting to.

Now, consider the impact of missing buttons, poorly described alternative text, or missing context, and you’ll understand how important it is to make your website compatible with assistive technologies.

Open the ‘How to use a screen reader’ panel. You’ll see a range of additional keyboard shortcuts. These let you navigate each heading, element, landmark, link, and more.

We encourage you to try the screen reader on your site, especially if you’ve never used one before.

8) Use the impaired vision simulator

We’ve included several simulations of visual impairments, ranging from myopia to loss of peripheral vision.

To access these, click the ‘Impaired Vision’ tab and on any simulation. You can adjust the amount using the sliders.

This is important as it helps you understand how people with moderate to severe visual impairments might view your website.

9) Use the color blindness simulator to assess contrast issues

Color blindness affects 8% of all men and about 0.5% of women. It is a common condition that affects the way that people see colors. Globally, over 350 million people are affected by color blindness. We recommend that you test your website while simulating monochromatic vision to make sure it’s accessible to everyone.

To get started, open the Color Blindness Simulator panel.

From the list, choose the simulation you want to test. For example, the loss of green is the most common, but you might want to also check ‘color greatly reduced’ for a more extreme loss of all colors.

Remember, choosing to distinguish elements by color alone is a WCAG failure.

10) Use the dyslexia simulator to assess readability

Dyslexia is the most common learning disorder in the world, affecting 10% of the global population. It affects the way that people read and write.

The letters on a page may appear jumbled, and this causes a greater cognitive burden. Making your content more readable can help, so consider simplifying your text, writing shorter sentences, and using sans-serif fonts.

To use this check, open the Dyslexia Simulator tab. You can adjust the severity (the speed at which the letters on the page jumble) by using the slider.

Congratulations! You’ve got a more accessible web page for free.

If you’ve worked through every step of this guide and used the accompanying help content in the Silktide accessibility checker, you should be in a good position to make changes to your web page.

Of course, the accessibility checker is great for helping you manage a single page at a time, but Silktide also has a full suite of accessibility tools in a single platform, that monitors your entire site for ADA, WCAG, and accessibility compliance problems.

Check out more details about the full Silktide platform here.

If you want more free accessibility resources, we have a range of free accessibility books, a collection of educational videos on our YouTube channel, and an accessibility newsletter.

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We’re pleased to announce all Silktide customers now have immediate access to Silktide’s new AI capabilities.

Our Ask AI feature saves you time by explaining how to fix any specific problem Silktide discovers. It understands your code, your design, and even your CMS.

Here’s how it works.

Ask AI how to solve problems

When viewing a page inside Silktide, every issue now has an “Ask AI” button next to it:

Simply click this button to open a sidebar, where AI will explain the specific issue you’re seeing and how to fix it:

The explanation is not just static help text. Silktide uses cutting-edge AI to consider your specific code, text, and images, and to explain the specific problem you are experiencing.

Silktide knows about your CMS and related technologies. So for example, if your website uses WordPress and the Yoast plugin, our AI can tell you how to fix problems with those:

You can reply to the AI to ask follow-up questions:

Follow-up questions can help you resolve unusually tricky problems. Say Silktide gives you code to fix an accessibility issue, but that change impacts your design in a way you don’t like. You could ask Silktide to make changes to better suit your design tastes.

You can also customize the level of technical knowledge that Silktide assumes when it talks to you. Choose between very non-technical (but longer) explanations, or developer-friendly (shorter) dialogue:

How to enable Silktide’s AI features

Silktide’s AI has to be enabled by one of your account administrators before you can use it.

This is completely free of charge, but you should understand how our AI works before accepting. In particular, bear in mind:

• Silktide records conversations to enhance your experience and improve the AI’s performance
• Some of your website’s code will be sent to OpenAI (an approved 3rd party) for processing
• Our agreement with OpenAI ensures that your data will not be used to train their model

The first time an administrator chooses to use Silktide’s AI, they will be given the option to enable it for the whole account. Once this is done, everyone within the account has access.

Understanding AI credits

Silktide’s AI works on a credit model. We have given every customer exactly 1,000 AI credits for free now.

Every click of the Ask AI button (i.e. asking AI to solve a problem) uses up one credit. Asking follow-up questions also uses one credit.

This is an early access model, intended to give customers a taste of this exciting new feature. We may revise our credit model in the future, once we’ve learned from real-world use by our customers. Silktide are not currently offering more credits for sale, but we expect to do so shortly.

How clever is Silktide’s AI, really?

It’s not perfect, but you might be surprised how far AI has come.

For example, when Silktide considers the grammar of a confusing sentence like “all your base are belong to us”, it understands the joke:

And when asked to help write alternative text for a meme, it correctly suggests “Meme featuring a man with shoulder-length hair and beard, gesturing with his hand, with the caption ‘ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY IGNORE ACCESSIBILITY’”:

We continue to be amazed at the capabilities of modern Generative AI, and expect you will be too.

What’s next for AI?

Silktide will be announcing many more game-changing AI features throughout 2024.

Watch our recent “How AI will revolutionize web governance” webinar for a guided tour through the latest advances in Generative AI. And join our webinar mailing list to be notified about future AI webinars.

We expect to announce our next major AI feature in early January.

Need more help? Visit the Silktide AI support documentation.

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If you want to take website accessibility seriously, then manual accessibility auditing is a must.

Whenever I hear the word “manual” I sigh to myself. Mostly because I’m lazy and manual suggests hard work. 

But if my years of watching 5-minute craft videos have taught me anything, it’s that there’s always something that makes things easier (usually superglue and plastic bottles).

When it comes to your website’s accessibility testing you probably already use or have considered using an automated testing platform like Silktide. 

But if you are, does that mean you don’t need to do anything else? Does it mean that manual accessibility auditing can be ignored? We don’t think so. And here’s why.

Pssst. Don’t worry if you’ve not got the internal resources to do manual testing yourself. We give you some tips on how to do it at the end of the article .

Level up your dedication to accessibility

Manual accessibility testing is carried out by people. And that’s important. Because people have empathy. 

Where AI and automation tools see accessibility checks as a box-ticking exercise, a person can actually consider how users with disabilities use your website. 

Manual accessibility auditing combines human judgment, empathy, and a deep understanding of accessibility.

They go beyond surface-level assessments and cover your website’s key pages, templates, and forms. The result? Detailed and actionable reports that break down issues and step-by-step guidance for remediation.

You shouldn’t be working to make your website accessible to get another badge on your collar. You should be doing it to make your website a better place for people who use it.

Accessibility audits don’t have to be as boring as they sound

Hearing “accessibility audit” isn’t quite inspiring enough to get me out of bed in the morning. Often it can be pages and pages of spreadsheets and documents that blend into one as you develop a serious case of brain fuzz.

But that doesn’t have to be the case.

With manual accessibility auditing, you can ensure reports are built in a way that is actually beneficial. It’s what we do with our own manual audit reports (spoiler alert! We do manual testing).

Accessibility audits should have clear and concise explanations. Without that, they just aren’t… accessible. Ironic, right?

Protect yourself from legal risks

Legal risk can be scary. But with manual testing, you can accurately find places where your website doesn’t comply with accessibility regulations. That means you can take better protective measures to mitigate risk. 

Accessibility is hard. And learning it can take a long time. So using the expertise of a manual auditor with years of experience means you get it right first time.

If you want to find out more about accessibility legislation visit our Glossary, including articles covering the ADA, Section 508, EU Web Accessibility Directive, and more.

Dig deep into your website content

Manual accessibility auditing lets you dig through all your content. From web pages to templates, forms, PDFs, and videos – the benefit of manual audits is that they can look at it all. 

But it’s not just about finding where problems lie. Manual auditors give you a detailed breakdown of why the problem is a problem. Then they guide you step-by-step to fix them.

Accessibility testing on actual devices

The best way to test websites for accessibility is by actually using the devices and technology your visitors use. 

This includes the usual suspects, desktop, tablet, and mobile – all on different operating systems such as iOS, Windows, and Android. But that’s not all. 

They may also test using accessibility technology like screen readers like JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and Talkback. 

All of this adds up to a lot of testing and in some cases, knowledge of how to use the technology. 

It’s something that would take years of training and experience to gain that sort of expertise in-house. So why not get someone in who already does?

Accessibility testing tips, as promised

At the start of this article, I promised you some tips on how to do some manual testing yourself. Be warned, it’s not easy.

• Learn accessibility
  If you want to find accessibility issues on your website then you’re going to need to be able to identify what is a problem. And it’s not going to be a quick Google to find out. Luckily enough you’re in the right place. We’ve got tons of blog articles about accessibility and a YouTube channel full of bite-sized explanations.
  
• Understand WCAG
  The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is a set of guidelines most cited for what is considered “accessible”. There are different versions and different levels of WCAG compliance. Be warned, it’s not an easy read, but you’re going to want to know this stuff.
  
• Use multiple devices and accessibility technology
  Just because a page looks good on a desktop, doesn’t mean it’s going to be good on mobile too. And unfortunately, you can even find accessibility problems on one browser, that aren’t there on another. The best thing to do is to test your site using multiple browsers and multiple different devices. You should also try using a screen reader on your site. These can be quite hard to get used to though. Fortunately, we’ve got a handy beginner-friendly field guide that’ll help you get started.
  
• Keep at it
  There’s no “right time” to improve your website’s accessibility. Instead, it should be a constant effort. If you’re building or migrating your website, then it’s the perfect time. You can focus on accessibility right from the beginning and save a HUGE amount of time down the line.

By now, I’m sure you’re convinced. Manual accessibility auditing should be part of your workflow. And if you need a hand getting there, let’s talk and see how we can help.

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TLDR; Accessibility overlays are literally the worst thing you can do for web accessibility.

Web accessibility in 2 lines of code?

An accessibility overlay (sometimes called an accessibility widget) is a piece of software that promises to make your website accessible without you lifting a finger. They let users change accessibility settings while on your website and customize the browsing experience.

All you need to do is add it to your website through a couple of lines of code and boom! Your website is accessible!

Isn’t it?

Everybody loves quick and easy solutions. But unfortunately, website accessibility isn’t that simple.

Accessibility overlays promise to make websites more accessible, but in truth, they masquerade as a silver bullet to prevent accessibility lawsuits. And they don’t even keep you safe from that.

But perhaps we’re being harsh. Maybe overlays do work?

Do accessibility overlays make my website legally compliant?

Legal requirements for website accessibility are different depending on a multitude of factors. These include where you are in the world, and whether you are in the public or private sector. But let’s make it simple. In the US, websites must adhere to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which requires websites to be accessible to users with disabilities. Yet the standard they need to reach to be considered accessible is unclear.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is a series of guidelines for website accessibility, and generally, most of the world agrees WCAG is the universal standard to follow. Some laws specifically reference WCAG, and others do not. But even the Department of Justice references WCAG during ADA breach lawsuits.

Now for the kicker.

Despite what you may have heard, overlays do not comply with the ADA or most other accessibility laws across the world. They simply don’t meet WCAG standards.

There are countless criteria that overlays don’t address, such as mobile compatibility and PDF documents, but even the issues they do address are unreliable. Take, for example, the settings for reducing motion. Ideally, websites should apply the CSS media query ‘prefers-reduced-motion’ where needed.

Overlays don’t implement this. Instead, they attempt to pause everything themselves, which can produce more harmful results.

What all this means is that accessibility overlays do not and will not protect your website from accessibility lawsuits. Why? Because they don’t make your website accessible.

Automated content generation in accessibility overlays

Accessibility overlays can attempt to generate content such as headings and alternative text automatically. While a machine might be smart enough to identify the contents of an image, what it won’t provide is the context.

For example, an accessibility overlay might try to generate alt text for the image below as “Image: Men in a boat.”

But is that really helpful?

Instead, here’s some alt text we’ve written that includes the context accessibility overlays simply can’t generate.

“Image: Painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware river in 1766”

Do you see how that is more informative?

Compliance means making sure that users are not deprived of any information due to how they access the content. With overlays, you simply can’t guarantee they will do this. You can read our article on writing better alt text if you’d like to know more.

Do accessibility overlays actually help?

Okay, so accessibility overlays are not compliant, but do they actually help people? Well, a survey from the accessibility group WebAIM found that only 2.4% of disabled users found overlays effective.

In fact, this sentiment is widespread across accessibility spaces. There’s even an open letter signed by accessibility advocates opposing the use of overlays.

And they’re not just targeting a single overlay. There are lots of overlays out there. Visiting a website is rolling the dice on which accessibility plugin you’ll encounter in the bottom corner of your screen. But that’s another problem. The user has to navigate to the overlay menu and apply their preferred settings. Every time.

If you’ve ever been annoyed with pop-ups, chat bubbles, and cookie banners littering your screen, you can imagine how difficult it can be to close them without using a mouse or being able to see the screen. This process is not only frustrating but exhausting.

More complexity means less accessibility.

Are accessibility overlays better than nothing?

You might be thinking “So overlays aren’t perfect. Surely they’re better than nothing?” Well, no. Ready for the big twist? Your operating system or web browser already has all of the options that you’ll see in accessibility overlays.

Zooming into the page? You can do that with your keyboard. Larger text? Every operating system lets you do this. Cursor size? Yes.

Here’s the thing. Users who depend on these features will already have them enabled, and overlays will try to overwrite them with their own settings. This means that accessibility overlays don’t make websites any more accessible, they only put barriers up to people who have their own accessibility configurations.

A practice like this may not be helpful, but it is performative. Websites wear accessibility overlays like a badge of honor, to show the world how much they care about accessibility. Overlay providers are aware of this, and will sometimes include it as part of their pitch.

Overlays don’t solve everything, and even what they claim to solve doesn’t always work. Even something simple like changing the text size can make the website unreadable since overlays don’t reformat the page.

Are accessibility overlays a good code-free solution?

This comes down to our final point. Accessibility overlays might call themselves a code-free solution, but their main selling point is why they don’t work. The underlying code is what makes or breaks a website. It makes it mobile-friendly. It makes it work with assistive technology. It makes it functional.

If overlays don’t change your website’s code, then how can they possibly fix any accessibility issues in your website’s code?

Overlays create problems and resell features that everyone already has. And they don’t make websites compliant with accessibility legislation. And it’s not just us who thinks they suck.

Do accessibility overlays actually work?

In short, no. But don’t just take it from us. People in the accessibility community strongly warn and advise against accessibility overlays.

Regardless of what they claim, overlays simply can’t bring a website into full ADA compliance or ensure that it meets all WCAG requirements.

Perkins Access

Beware of companies claiming to use AI solutions to make websites accessible

Haben Girma

Largest U.S. Blind Advocacy Group Bans Web Accessibility Overlay Giant From Its National Convention

Forbes

Accessibility groups and influencers have been outspoken about the accessibility overlay problem. More and more publications have shed light on the issue and yet websites still use them. While companies think they’re saving money and “doing the right thing” by supporting them, it’s the users who are paying the price.

You don’t need us to preach about the importance of website accessibility. We just need to agree on a solution that works for everyone, and that means listening to what the community is saying.

Basically, overlays are terrible. Don’t use them.

Web Accessibility Education

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Let’s be honest. Migrating a website can be a real headache. 

Between managing content, broken links, and accessibility checking, it can feel like a never-ending to-do list. 

You’ve probably heard that you can expect a large drop-off in traffic after launching a new website. And while this can be true, it doesn’t have to be. Migrating or launching a new website doesn’t have to mean saying goodbye to your traffic or revenue. In fact, it’s possible to maintain and even grow your traffic after launching a new website.

So what’s the secret? Moz says “every single step [has to be] well-planned and executed.” But surely that goes without saying? The thing is, it’s a big project, with a ton of work. And that means it’s easy to slip up without realizing which can have huge ramifications on your website performance. That’s where automation tools come in.

But is it really worth the extra cost for automation tools during an already expensive website rebuild or migration project? Many would argue that it’s essential.

How do I manage content during a website migration?

One of the biggest challenges of a website migration project is moving content between websites. This can cause a whole host of issues, from hundreds of broken links to duplicate content. These issues have the potential to tank your site’s SEO and discoverability.

Here’s an example of a large retailer that after switching from HTTP to HTTPS saw a loss of 35% of visibility within just 2 weeks. It took them 6 months to recover. With a dip that large, the loss of revenue is huge.

The solution is easy – on the surface. Simply launch your website without issues like broken links and duplicate content. In reality, it’s a very difficult task. Finding these issues takes time and a whole lot of testing. And when you’re towards the end of a large website project, it’s easy just to go live with the intent to solve these issues later. 

Silktide helps us understand the new website, how it all hangs together, how it flows, and identify quickly any issues we are causing with the new build.

– Health Transformation Manager at National Health Service

That’s why it’s so important to track these issues throughout the website migration project. Using web automation tools, you can save time by taking the legwork out of manual tasks. By automating the finding, tracking, and monitoring of content issues as they arise you can make the whole project smoother, and remove the chance of human error.

How do I avoid traffic drops during a website migration?

It’s easy to assume that if the content on your website doesn’t change, then it should still perform the same after a website migration or rebuild. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. 

A new website can introduce a whole host of issues, from content, user experience, and accessibility, to crawling and indexing issues. This can damage your website’s user experience, performance, and brand reputation. Removing (or adding) large amounts of content, can also damage SEO visibility and conversions.

Automation tools that scan your entire website for these issues can help build an accurate picture of how your website looks to Google. Often the technology to crawl and rank your website is similar to how these automation tools work.

Armed with this sort of data, you can turn the odds in your favor and stand a better chance of setting yourself up for better rankings and an increase in traffic after launch.

Should my website be more accessible after a website migration?

Since the big boom in smartphones, the idea of “Mobile first” web design has been at the top of the list for any website migration project. However, we’re stepping into an era where mobile-first is second to “Accessibility-first.”

If a website is accessible, that means that it also works seamlessly on mobile devices – it’s a huge part of accessibility standards like WCAG. Think of it this way; website performance is a subset of website accessibility.

That’s why many websites are turning away from mobile-first design to accessibility-first instead. It allows websites to be built with the same benefits as mobile-first design plus a ton more. Increased accessibility means better SEO, more available market size, and a better user experience. 

“We can make sure that overall the theme is accessible and compliant from the start. What we really didn’t want to do was get to the completion of the website, and then find that we built in a load of problems that we then had to go back to, and so it was really a case of wanting to build it effectively along the way and the team use and refer to Silktide for that on a daily basis to make sure that that happens.“

– Health Transformation Manager at National Health Service

Automation tools that can find and report on accessibility issues alongside content and user experience optimizations means that you can ensure your new website is on track throughout development.

Starting a website rebuild or migration project with this mindset saves you time down the line too. You won’t need to invest the time to improve the fundamental structure of your website to make it accessible after launch.

How do I know if my new website is really ready to launch?

Automated tools can access the areas where your content isn’t yet live. The fact that these tools can access areas behind a VPN or on a staging site can give you increased confidence that your site is ready to go live. 

By identifying and fixing issues as they arise, you can ensure your site is fully optimized and accessible before launching. This is the best way to avoid those large drops in traffic and website performance after launch. 

How do I manage a website migration project?

Managing a website migration project can be challenging, especially with a large site with lots of pages and content that are essential to get right. Add large teams, or external resources into the mix and it’s very easy for the project to blossom into something overwhelming. 

Automation tools are a vital project management resource that can streamline the process and make it much smoother. You can keep track of all your site’s pages, content, and issues, making it easier to identify areas for improvement and track progress. 

You can schedule page checks so that you can be sure that your reports are all up to date. This removes the headache from managing a large amount of work and meeting deadlines. By automating the processes that can be done by a computer, you can save time and effort, allowing you to focus on more important aspects of your project.

How do I prevent a negative impact on my existing website visitors?

Moving content between websites can be a time-consuming and challenging task. There is always a risk of losing content or introducing errors such as broken links, pages that don’t work on mobile, or outdated content.

For your existing website visitors, this sudden bad experience can seriously damage your brand reputation. Or worse, turn your loyal brand advocates away.

Using automation tools, you can identify and resolve any content-related issues before going live. The result? Your new website is error-free and ensures a smooth user experience for your existing website visitors.

Conclusion

In conclusion, using automation tools during your website migration can be incredibly valuable. They help ensure accessibility, improve SEO, save time, and enhance user experience. They can give you complete confidence in your new site and reduce the chances of reduced traffic and revenue.

With the cost and time involved in a large website rebuild or migration project, it’s essential that everything goes smoothly. It’s already difficult to launch a new website without seeing a large dip in web visitors and revenue that takes a long time to recover from. So don’t make it even harder. 

Want to see how your website holds up? Get a free scan of your website.

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Expect a year of change in the world of websites, as cutting-edge AI technology takes center stage.

2023 is shaping up to be an exciting year for website design and development, with many trends set to make a big impact on the industry. In this article, we’ll take a look at seven key trends to watch out for in the coming year.

1. AI design becomes mainstream

AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E-2 took the internet by storm towards the end of 2022 and it doesn’t look like the hype is going to die down in 2023. Already we’re seeing users using AI tools to inspire design and content ideas and save time. Expect to see more AI-generated website designs and more tough conversations on who owns what when it comes to AI-generated art.

If you’ve watched any sci-fi movie ever then you might recognize large steps in AI technology as the start of the end. In truth, it’s unlikely we’re going to see a time-traveling Arnie any time soon. Instead, there’s potential for AI to inspire us to break conformity when it comes to web design.

Over the years web design has fallen into a repetitive routine, they might all be different, but they essentially all look the same. We’ve decided on what a good website looks like and we all aspire to it instead of innovating. There’s a chance that AI-generated designs could be the push we need to start.

2. AI-generated content will be everywhere

On the content side of things, users of AI technology such as ChatGPT are already realizing its potential to change the game. Much like the in-demand skill of “Good at Googling”, it seems 2023 will be the year in which the art of prompt writing for AI tools becomes a valid skill for the resume.

Content marketing has long been a core pillar of an organization’s digital marketing strategy. But releasing a variety of content is often a challenge. Tools like ChatGPT make it a walk in the park. Expect savvy entrepreneurs to integrate AI tools into their websites to automate SEO-boosted blog articles, social media posts, and emails during 2023. In fact, we expect over a million web pages will contain AI-generated content before the end of 2023.

There are other steps to take too. Website chatbots are likely to install advanced AI to provide a more authentic and personalized experience for users. It is hard to say whether it’ll be indistinguishable from a human before the end of the year. But considering these AI tools are still in their infancy, it wouldn’t be surprising.

3. Cookies are dying

It’s been 10 years since Safari and Firefox browsers began taking internet privacy seriously and disabled the use of third-party cookies. Now, Google is finally catching up. In fact, it’s been “catching up” for a while.

Google announced it would be dropping third-party cookies on the Chrome browser back in January 2020. Now, it looks like they’re finally going to make good on that promise by the end of 2024. Expect 2023 to be the year that many organizations start thinking about alternative “cookie-free” technologies.

When cookies are finally no more, it’s going to mean big changes for many organizations. They’ll need to rewrite their software to follow the new rules. So yes, cookies are dying, but despite the efforts of companies like us creating cookie-free analytics solutions, the cookie banner is likely here to stay.

Despite this, website professionals should be aware that the way they collect and process data is going to change significantly. This is a great opportunity to rethink how to approach user data and make sure that data privacy is at the forefront of your website strategy.

4. Apple is looking at changing reality

Apple is expected to release Reality OS or xrOS, its new VR or AR project this year. There’s a lot of speculation about what it will exactly be – likely a VR headset/AR glasses combo that they hope will be the next big thing in consumer technology. While the tech is likely to be out of most people’s budget on release day, it could have a huge impact on web design and development.

The real question is, how do you build a website that works in augmented reality? How do users navigate? How do you optimize it? All these questions are speculative right now but 2023 is likely to be the year we start getting answers. If the tech is as big as rumors suggest, it’ll make website professionals rethink everything they know about website design. It’ll have a huge positive impact on digital accessibility and so a fully accessible web may be a lot closer than we think.

5. The next generation of voice control

The next level of sophisticated voice recognition technology, such as OpenAI’s Whisper, means we’ll likely see more voice-controlled devices and web navigation tools. This will be game-changing for web accessibility and will allow users to navigate a website using voice commands, rather than a mouse and keyboard.

6. Google will enable new web transitions

Earlier in 2022 we looked at Google’s new web transitions that allow the simple implementation of fancy animated transitions across a website. It’s the first step towards making websites look and feel more like native apps. Right now they are being tested but it is likely they’ll be released later in 2023.

7. WCAG 2.2 will finally release

After numerous delays, the next version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is set to release in 2023. If you want to know more about what’s coming up in WCAG 2.2, you can watch our on-demand webinar or watch our YouTube series on WCAG 2.2.

It’s unlikely WCAG 2.2 will be upheld as a legal requirement any time soon. But it’s important to be aware of the changes that are coming. Particularly as organizations such as the Department of Justice have been working hard to hold organizations with inaccessible websites legally accountable.

8. Everyone is going dark mode

When it comes to design, more and more users are switching to dark mode on their devices, and it’s no surprise that this trend is set to continue in 2023. Expect to see more websites offering toggles for users to switch between light and dark modes to reduce eye strain and improve website readability.

9. A legal focus on privacy

Privacy laws are on the rise in the US inspired by GDPR regulations in Europe, and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
Privacy laws on the way that will be enforced in 2023 specifically include:

• The Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (“Virginia Act”) – effective January 1, 2023

• The Colorado Privacy Act (“Colorado Act”) – effective July 1, 2023

• The Connecticut Act Concerning Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring (“Connecticut Act”) – effective July 1, 2023

• The Utah Privacy Act (“Utah Act”) – effective December 1, 2023

Collectively, these are known as the “2023 State Privacy Laws”, and will require organizations to update existing privacy notices, extend additional rights to consumers and update contracts with vendors.

You can read more about the 2023 State Privacy Laws, what they include and what steps to take to prepare here.

10. Introducing Progressive Web Apps

We’ve heard a lot of buzz recently about Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). This looks to be the next step to bridge the gap between websites and native apps. For example, PWAs work offline and can access the user’s camera or photo album at their permission. It seems PWAs are a direct response to the increasing amount of users that browse the web on mobile compared with desktop.

It’s unlikely it’ll become the norm for all organizations. Instead, it’ll be a niche case for social media websites and other sites with a high volume of visitors. Here’s a great video about PWAs and how to build them yourself in case you’re interested.

In conclusion, 2023 is set to be a year of big changes and exciting developments in the world of website design and development. With so many new trends and technologies on the horizon, it’s an exciting time to be a part of the industry. Stay ahead of the curve by keeping an eye on these trends, and by being mindful of the legal and ethical implications of these new technologies.

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The new Silktide Index launches in January 2023. It includes enhanced accessibility testing and WCAG 2.2 support.

Over the past couple of years, Silktide’s website testing and scoring methodology has evolved. We now test for more issues and in some cases, test in different ways. We’ve upgraded some score weightings to reflect the importance of various accessibility issues. WCAG 2.2 accessibility testing is now included.

We’ve updated the Silktide Index to reflect these changes and advances in technologies.

What does this mean for you?

In short:

• Silktide Index now includes WCAG 2.2 checks
• Accessibility tests now match the Silktide platform
• Scores will change, some dramatically so

Why are the scores changing?

The approach for calculating scores is fundamentally different between the older version of the Silktide Index and the new one. You should not expect scores between the versions to match.

Think of it like how schools change their grading system each year. You can compare the grades of one child from 2010 with another in 2020, but they won’t (and can’t) be the same, as the criteria change.

There’s not a simple explanation for what has changed – there are new criteria, new concepts, and new approaches. For a technical explanation of the Index algorithm changes please visit this support article.

If you are a paid Silktide customer, you can expect the scores in the Index to differ from those in your account. Here’s an article that explains why Index scores differ from Silktide customer accounts.

Benefits

Broadly speaking, these changes:

• Improve scoring accuracy
• Bring some accessibility areas up-to-date
• Allow for more accurate identification of issues
• Add WCAG 2.2 success criteria
• Bring scoring between the Silktide Index and our customer’s reports more closely together

Things to consider

The following points have not changed since the previous Silktide Index but they are worth highlighting here:

• In most cases, we are testing a sample of up to 125 pages
• Those pages are unlikely to be the same each month
• Any ‘decisions’ made in your own report (if you are a customer) are not applied to the Index

What other changes are being made?

In order to expand the Index, we’re streamlining some categories during 2023. We’ll combine multiple similar categories together. A specific example is the combination of all UK NHS websites into a single category.

Later in 2023, we’ll expand Silktide Index to include non-accessibility checks.

What to do next?

In January, Silktide Index will be updated and websites in all categories are likely to see changes in scores and position. This is not something to be alarmed at, but we appreciate that this kind of thing can cause some concern.

Consider this. If your score does change dramatically, check your Silktide Index report to see if new accessibility issues are highlighted. It’s likely with the new and amended testing methodology that there are accessibility problems being found that could not be found before.

Also, the score weighting has changed. Some issues may have become more important, or less important, than in previous reports.

The biggest single change is the inclusion of WCAG 2.2 testing. It’s likely that accessibility issues will be found against the new Success Criteria, which will affect scores.

If you have any specific concerns, then do reach out to us at support@silktide.com and we’ll do our best to address them.