UsableNet

UsableNet Review

What is UsableNet?

UsableNet is another manual accessibility solutions provider with a comprehensive end-to-end digital accessibility solutions service with a powerful and innovative accessibility testing tool and a mobile web and app development service. They provide WCAG 2.0 & 2.1 AA Compliance by first of all performing manual audits, automated testing, and usability testing of your website and web application by people with disabilities for a comprehensive assessment of your site’s accessibility. UsableNet also provides web and mobile development services, including fully-managed remediation of your digital assets with accommodation for the training of your IT team keeping accessible digital assets. The highlight here will, of course, be the UsableNet Assistive service which offers an end-to-end solution that remediates your website and maintains accessibility.

On completion, UsableNet will verify your site’s accessibility through expert users with disabilities and maintain accessibility with a comprehensive ongoing accessibility maintenance package. It is at this stage UsableNet’s AQA software platform helps to integrate accessibility and usability testing by offering automated testing with an integrated feedback system your team needs to keep your digital assets accessible and compliant with the ADA and WCAG guidelines.

UsableNet Service(s) and Features

Founded in 2000, UsableNet provides a blend of evolving, innovative, customized automation and quite a lot of manual input in planning, fixing, and maintaining accessible digital assets and delivering digital inclusiveness. They begin your accessibility compliance by performing a comprehensive manual audit and usability testing of your website, web applications, PDF, and multimedia. This assessment is usually performed by UsableNet’s expert accessibility developers against WCAG 2.0 AA standards and through its accessibility testing platform, UsableNet AQA. As part of the assessment of the accessibility of your digital properties, UsableNet organizes User Testing with major disability groups that utilize certain assistive technologies on the site and provides comments and descriptions of the issues found. The information and results of the audit and user testing are captured, classified into a prioritized list with code suggestions to guide your team, and delivered through their accessibility management platform, UsableNet AQA.

If you’re confused, the UsableNet AQA is an all-in-one accessibility platform that is useful for carrying out full accessibility testing and audit, remediation, and accessibility maintenance.

The cloud-based platform provides tools (API, Site Crawler, Chrome Extension, etc) your team of Developers, QA Testers, and UX Designers can use to perform automated testing of your site.

It is also a valuable tool for ongoing compliance maintenance as it can integrate automatic testing (test, capture, and re-test complex user flows) into your development cycle (through Jenkins, JIRA, and other Content Integration Systems) along with its automatic and manual audit compliance and robust remediation reporting feature.

As a hub for digital accessibility, user experience, and quality assurance, AQA provides one place for the UsableNet team and your team to communicate and manage all issues. The UsableNet AQA provides an overall compliance summary report that covers statistics of compliance of user flows and the number of identified issues against WCAG 2.0. It provides a spreadsheet containing the most affected pages, the complexity of issues along with prioritized items that need to be fixed, and a link to code descriptions and recommendations (designed by UsableNet’s developers) which provide the information your team can navigate through to fix each of the web accessibility issues. The AQA service also offers 24/7 developer helpdesk so you can connect with the UsableNet team code samples solutions but there will always be question marks on the effectiveness of these helpdesks. On completion of remediation and removal of barriers, the final verification of usability is done by users with disabilities. UsableNet also provides accessible web and mobile development services and support in case you want to optimize your digital channels and improve digital engagement.

With UsableNet Assistive, UsableNet’s team and platform will remediate and maintain the accessibility of your digital assets so they conform to the most current standards. This means their team of experts will single-handedly make your website fully ADA and WCAG 2.0 AA compliant combining automated tools, manual review, and disabled user testers without you worrying about having your team remediate or bother about maintaining compliance. UsableNet will also be providing certification and letter of compliance and a regularly updated accessibility statement to demonstrate your commitment to ensuring your digital assets are accessible to users of all abilities.

UsableNet Pricing

When you request for consultation, UsableNet will streamline its tools and technology for your organization’s accessibility activities. Although they do not publish pricing, you can benefit from their free one-page accessibility evaluation against WCAG 2.0 AA with the UsableNet AQA and get access to all conformance issues with detailed fixing descriptions, stored code, and UX that contains the errors. While the all-inclusive UsableNet Assistive will cost more, we have an idea their UsableNet AQA testing tool costs around $1,000/month.

UsableNet Platform and Support

Your digital accessibility consulting with UsableNet opens the floor for your compliance. You can choose to have your digital asset remediated and maintained externally so it conforms to the most current standards through the UsableNet Assistive option or you can have your team of designers and developers, through training and guidance to achieve ADA and WCAG 2.0 AA internally with the UsableNet AQA and services. Whichever approach you opt for will be determined by the available resources, timeline (in the event you already received a letter), and budget.

With the UsableNet AQA, you get tools, professional testers, a developer help desk with a live chat and a robust knowledge center for accessibility training.

Assistive helps you to accessibility compliance in a few weeks with periodic user testing and updates to your accessibility statement, a UsableNet certification, and a letter of compliance.

The summary. 

Why UsableNet? Pros and Cons

UsableNet help organizations achieve accessibility compliance of their digital assets via a manual approach (comprehensive digital accessibility audit) with innovative and robust testing and reporting tools. They also offer ongoing accessibility maintenance, user testing, and accessibility training together with web and mobile development services and support for ADA and WCAG 2.0/2.1 AA compliance. Let’s examine the positives and negatives of UsableNet’s solutions:

The Final Verdict On UsableNet

With over two decades of delivering inclusive digital experiences, UsableNet’s solution has evolved to be innovative with accessibility tools and a robust accessibility model. On its first approach which also includes its flagship accessibility testing technology and service, UsableNet AQA, automated WCAG testing, manual audits of your sites and apps and user testing are performed by UsableNet’s team of accessibility experts and disabled professional user testers. The audit combines experts and the platform (UsableNet AQA) to create comprehensive, consolidated reports of all testing and feedback or guidelines for your team to organize, test, resolve, and report accessibility compliance. The feature-rich UsableNet AQA allows for ongoing accessibility maintenance as it allows you to detect and rectify accessibility issues, perform usability and screen reader testing, and allow teams to communicate and manage all issues in one place for WCAG 2.0 compliance. 

UsableNet Assistive means you will be outsourcing accessibility compliance to an external (UsableNet’s) team if your organization does not have the time and resources to address and maintain your site’s accessibility issues. With this fully managed approach, along with the mobile web and app development, the UsableNet team ensures your digital properties always conform fully to ADA and WCAG 2.0/2.1 AA. 

What is sure for both of UsableNet’s approaches is that with their expertise and experience, your website, web app, PDF, and multimedia will be made accessible to people with disabilities and compliant with standard accessibility standards and you can achieve ongoing compliance.