Inclusivity is not just about using language that makes those around us feel comfortable, it’s also about accommodating people with physical and mental limitations. That’s why nonprofits, more so than even private companies, need their websites to be accessible to all users, no matter their abilities.
This is not just a legal requirement but a moral imperative for nonprofits. Accessibility means everyone, including those with disabilities, can see, hear, understand, navigate, and interact with your website. Before we get into the best tools for making your nonprofit website accessible, let’s first define what web accessibility means and what it involves.
What Is Web Accessibility?
It’s worth understanding the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on the current regulations around web accessibility.
The ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in all areas of public life. The law requires employers, businesses, and state and local governments to provide reasonable accommodations so people with disabilities can fully participate in society. This includes making digital content, like websites, accessible to all people with disabilities.
Today the standard for accessibility is based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These guidelines outline four main principles for web content:
- Perceivable: Users can see and hear content and interface elements. For example, providing text transcripts for videos for users who are deaf or hard of hearing.
- Operable: Users can navigate and interact with controls and interactive elements without barriers. For example, all website forms are accessible and can be submitted via keyboard navigation.
- Understandable: Content is presented clearly and in a way that users can understand. This means no jargon and no acronyms that might confuse users.
- Robust: Content can be accessed and used across different technologies and platforms. Users shouldn’t be limited to specific browsers or devices to access website content.
In short, web accessibility is not just a legal requirement but also about inclusivity and user experience across different environments and conditions. By following WCAG guidelines, nonprofits and businesses can make their digital presence accessible to all and expand their reach and impact in the community.
Luckily there are many tools that can help nonprofits achieve and maintain website accessibility. Some of them require technical expertise to implement, while others can be used by anyone who knows the basics of how to operate their content management system.
Best Web Accessibility Tools
Here are the top tools you should consider for making your nonprofit website accessible to users with disabilities. All these tools have been designed to comply with WCAG standards. As you read through the various providers, you may notice that the more expensive options require little or no assistance from a developer to implement, while the free, open-source solutions entail the involvement of a seasoned developer both during the setup process and for ongoing maintenance.
1. WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool
WAVE is a free online tool that gives you instant accessibility feedback on your web content. Just enter your website URL and WAVE will generate a report that highlights all the accessibility issues found, such as missing alt text for images, contrast errors, and structural problems. This is a must-have for nonprofits that want to quickly identify and fix accessibility barriers on their website.
Once you get the report, you’ll need a professional web developer to apply the recommendations in the report which can be time-consuming, so if your nonprofit doesn’t have the resources for such a project this tool may not be the right solution for you.
2. Accessibility Insights
Accessibility Insights is a free suite of tools from Microsoft that helps developers and website owners identify and fix accessibility issues during development. It includes automated checks for common accessibility problems and a manual testing toolkit to ensure compliance with accessibility standards.
The software is a browser extension available on Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. Like WAVE, you’ll need a web developer to use this tool.
3. Axe Accessibility Checker
Axe by Deque Systems offers both free and paid versions that allow nonprofits to scan web pages for accessibility issues. It gives you actionable feedback on how to fix the problems so you can prioritize and implement the changes with your web developer.
The tool has a free trial that can be upgraded to a paid version based on your usage needs but according to our research, you should expect to pay at least $40 per month per user.
4. UserWay
UserWay is a cloud-based software company that offers web accessibility solutions including an accessibility widget that you can add to your site which uses artificial intelligence to identify and fix accessibility issues on your website. They offer free and paid options for this tool, the paid version is more compliant with WCAG standards.
The widget allows users to customize their browsing experience based on their accessibility needs such as font sizes, contrast settings, and screen reader support so your website becomes more accessible. Implementation of this tool requires minimal web development expertise and takes only a few minutes to do.
The widget costs $490 per year for the Pro plan and up to $2,490 per year for the Ultimate plan. For most nonprofit websites the Pro plan is enough.
5. Accessibe
AccessiBe offers web accessibility solutions that make websites accessible to people with disabilities including those that affect vision, hearing, motor skills, and cognitive abilities. Their tool accessWidget takes only a few minutes to set up and then monitors accessibility issues on the site and fixes them automatically ensuring compliance with accessibility standards such as WCAG 2.1 and ADA Title III. They also have an easy-to-use interface that allows users to customize your website to their individual accessibility needs.
Their cheapest plan is the Standard plan which costs $490 per year and is enough for most nonprofit websites.
6. AccessLint
AccessLint is a GitHub app that reviews new code for accessibility issues as developers commit changes. While intended for developers, nonprofits can benefit from integrating AccessLint into their development workflow to catch accessibility issues early in the website development process.
7. Equally AI
Equally AI offers advanced web accessibility solutions for websites built on popular content management systems (CMS) such as Wix, Shopify, WordPress, and others. Their platform uses AI technology to automatically fix website accessibility so it’s accessible to users with disabilities including those that affect vision, hearing, motor skills, and cognitive abilities. Installation of their tool takes only a few minutes and can be done by anyone who knows how to use their website’s CMS.
Once installed the widget will appear and start scanning and analyzing your website. We use AI and human supervision to fix the inaccessible code on your website. Smaller websites like nonprofits usually go for their cheapest plan which is $37 per month or $379 per year.
8. EqualWeb
EqualWeb is another company that uses AI for website accessibility detection and remediation. Implementation involves adding a code to your website which can be copied from your user dashboard. Once done their Auto AI Accessibility Widget will appear on your website and will fix accessibility issues in real-time.
You can sign up for their 7-day free trial to try out their features. Once the trial is over if you decide to continue using the widget you’ll need to choose from their 5 plans. Most nonprofit websites don’t need anything above their 2 lowest plans: the Small plan which is $39 per month and is for 100-page websites or the Medium plan which is $49 per month and is for sites up to 1,000 pages.
The Bottom Line
By using these website accessibility tools you’re not only improving the user experience for all visitors but also showing you care about inclusivity and accessibility. Accessibility is not just about compliance but also about reaching more people and having more impact by making your content available to everyone.