Research, Insights, and AudioEye's Unique
Approach to Accessibility
TUCSON,
Ariz., April 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- AudioEye,
Inc. (NASDAQ: AEYE), the industry-leading digital accessibility
platform delivering website accessibility compliance to businesses
of all sizes, today released a white paper on the state of
accessibility and the company's innovative approach to closing the
web accessibility gap.
"While society's reliance on the internet increases at a fast
pace, progress on making every website accessible to people with
disabilities remains slow and uneven," said David Moradi, CEO at AudioEye. "To close the
digital accessibility gap, we need an approach that can tackle the
scale of the internet, the speed of content creation, and the scope
of accessibility issues allowing equal access to every website
user, while providing businesses and content creators with a
sustainable and affordable solution for the long term."
Accessibility vendors on the market today range from simple
automation-only solutions to labor-intensive, expensive manual
audits. AudioEye's research, which included user surveys and both
automated and manual analysis of websites across industries, shows
that the most effective and affordable way to solve web
accessibility is through a hybrid solution which pairs technology
with subject matter experts.
By 2030, almost two billion people are expected to be using
assistive technology, such as screen readers. This consideration
means solving digital accessibility issues at scale is critical to
ensuring that everyone, regardless of ability, can use and benefit
from the internet.
Key challenges in accessibility today
There are
currently 1.9 billion websites online, with more than 250,000 new
sites going live every day. Based on AudioEye's calculations in
this table and assuming the websites are of average complexity, it
would take approximately 167 billion hours for a person to fix
every website manually, or more than 80 million implementers
working for an entire year. If the average implementer is able to
make source code fixes and works 40 hours a week at an annual wage
of $100K, the solution would still
require 40 million implementers working for an entire year at the
cost of $4 trillion USD to fix just
half of the websites on the internet.
On March 18th, 2022, the
Department of Justice (DOJ) published web accessibility guidance,
reaffirming that the Americans with Disabilities Act's (ADA)
accessibility requirements apply to digital content. In the
release, the DOJ discusses the importance of web accessibility,
advocates the use of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG), and lists a number of recent settlements with businesses,
demonstrating its ongoing efforts and commitment to website
accessibility.
Despite the growing awareness of digital accessibility in the
private sector, renewed efforts by government, and expectations of
inclusivity, the following challenges continue to impact
progress:
- Ambiguity between legal and technical frameworks
- Misleading discourse and lack of transparency
- Current limits of technology
- Dynamic nature of websites and speed of content creation
AudioEye research findings and discussion
- Based on an analysis of 3,500 websites across 22 industries,
including healthcare, e-commerce, and employment, AudioEye found
that 79% of the websites had at least three severe accessibility
issues, i.e., issues that can potentially block an assistive
technology user from interacting with the content and/or completing
the goal of a site visit, such as submitting a form or requesting
information.
- 83% of e-commerce sites, 78% of healthcare sites, and 77% of
jobs and career sites had accessibility issues that block or
significantly impact a user's ability to complete key tasks, such
as viewing product descriptions, completing a purchase, filling out
an application, or booking an appointment.
- In a broader analysis, which included 20,000 websites, AudioEye
found that 5.8% of the sites were using some type of an automated
digital accessibility solution. AudioEye also found that despite
running automation-only accessibility solutions, most sites still
had accessibility errors with significant impact on the user
experience.
- The analysis of sites with the AudioEye solution showed that up
to 95% of accessibility issues can be fixed and prevented using a
mix of automated and manual remediations without the need to modify
the original website code.
- Upon conducting a manual audit of 55 randomly selected websites
that were using only traditional audit and remediation services,
AudioEye found over 950 accessibility issues. 41 of these sites had
one or more severe accessibility issues, such as non-functional
site navigation, unlabeled graphics, inaccessible video controls,
and other issues that made digital content and tools inaccessible
to people with disabilities.
- In an AudioEye survey of business leaders and web
professionals, 70% of 500 respondents said that "cost" is one of
the top concerns in addressing website accessibility.
- In a survey of assistive technology users, 54% of respondents
said they feel that e-commerce companies "don't care about earning
their business."
- In another AudioEye survey of assistive technology users,
respondents selected the top three accessibility problems as
keyboard navigation, missing or unhelpful headings, and empty or
missing form labels. These issues persist across retail,
healthcare, finance/banking, education, and other websites that
play an essential role in everyday life.
"When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, in many cases making digital
the only channel through which customers could interact with
brands, Forrester saw a significant uptick in inquiries related to
accessibility, mostly from companies getting serious about
accessibility for the first time. The pandemic served as a wake-up
call not just about the importance of digital accessibility but
also about its benefits…," wrote Gina
Bhawalkar, Principal Analyst at Forrester in Digital
Accessibility Enters The Spotlight As A Business Priority,
April 2021.
AudioEye's hybrid approach to digital
accessibility
AudioEye's technology was built and improved
over time to first and foremost address the needs of the end user.
This meant equipping website owners with the tools and knowledge
they need to fix the majority of accessibility errors for every
user in real-time and to monitor and remediate issues on an ongoing
basis. Based on continuous research, end user feedback, and
innovation, AudioEye's patented JavaScript-enabled automation:
- Delivers more than a billion remediations daily and is able to
identify patterns as they emerge.
- Detects 70% of common accessibility issues on a website, using
400+ test outcomes.
- Resolves about two-thirds of the detected issues with a suite
of 70+ automated fixes.
While automation helps provide rapid improvements at scale, it
cannot fix issues that depend on deeper contextual understanding
and direct human experience. AudioEye's team of experts and
assistive technology users provide the following services:
- By pairing automation with human assisted technology, help
diagnose and fix issues that even the best AI today cannot
solve.
- Conduct periodic manual audits of websites that are considered
at higher risk of non-compliance based on severity and frequency of
accessibility issues found.
- Systematically incorporate feedback and insights from members
of the disability community into the product development and
quality assurance process.
Download the complete Building for Digital Accessibility at
Scale white paper.
About AudioEye
AudioEye is an industry-leading digital
accessibility platform delivering ADA and WCAG compliance at scale.
By combining easy-to-use technology and subject matter expertise,
AudioEye helps companies and content creators solve every aspect of
web accessibility--from finding and resolving issues to navigating
legal compliance, to ongoing monitoring and upkeep. Trusted by the
FCC, ADP, SSA, Samsung, and others, AudioEye delivers automated
remediations and continuous monitoring for accessibility issues
without making fundamental changes to website architecture, source
code, or browser-based tools. Join us on our mission to eradicate
barriers to digital access, visit www.audioeye.com.
Corporate Contact:
AudioEye, Inc.
Dr. Carr Bettis, Executive
Chairman
cbettis@audioeye.com
Press Contact:
Andy
McGowan
CommCore Consulting Group
amcgowan@commcoreconsulting.com
Investor Contact:
Matt
Glover or Tom Colton
AEYE@gatewayir.com
(949) 574-3860
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SOURCE AudioEye, Inc.