Improving web application accessibility for the largest EdTech corporation in the US

In this case study, we talk about making EdTech Corporation's websites and educational content more accessible to individuals with disabilities.
In 2020, the company faced the need to comply with the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) law, which required website content and educational materials to meet certain accessibility criteria. Compliance with this law became important for several reasons:

• First, having a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) certificate of compliance showed educational institutions that the materials were adapted for learning disabled people, which directly affects the sales of educational services.
• Second, non-compliance could lead to lawsuits and large fines for companies whose resources are not adapted to meet accessibility criteria. According to ADA Site Compliance, 4,630 ADA-related lawsuits were filed in 2023, with e-commerce sites accounting for 82% of those lawsuits.

The task was to bring the web application and all content from the last 3-5 years (2000+ unique content pages from 30+ publisher journals) up to WCAG 2.0 AA standard and obtain the appropriate VPAT certifications.

Project Overview:

• Location: USA
• Product: Education portal for public schools and universities in the US
• Technologies: Adobe Experience Manager / Java, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, React.js
• Team: Back-end Developer, Front-end Developer
• Timeline: 1.5 years (April 2020 – September 2021)

Regrettably, we cannot disclose the application's name, any app screenshots, and links to the product due to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

First, a small sample of unique content pages was audited with Aptara to see which accessibility criteria were problematic. The most complex pages with the maximum number of used tools and components were chosen for this task. This allowed us to understand what needs to be created from scratch and what needs to be refined to meet the requirements. However, the criteria that could be checked automatically (e.g. using axe DevTools extension) were only a third of the criteria, the rest had to be checked manually.

As a result, more than 1000 unique content pages were redesigned on the criteria of site appearance, page navigation and the use of special tools for people with disabilities, such as the screen reader (like NVDA for Windows and VoiceOver for macOS).
Accessibility criteria also affect how content for the computer should look, namely it should have a clear structure of headings and subheadings, alternative text for multimedia attachments and more. These are important requirements for content creators who need the right tools. To this end, tools for editors have been improved with new components needed to increase accessibility, simplify their work and reduce site maintenance costs. We updated existing components that create headings, lists or other text elements and add multimedia (images and videos) with alternative text and description for blind users. This increased understanding of page content for special programs (for example, screen readers). New components on accessibility criteria and requirements for websites were also created: these are complex components for creating a particular block of content on a page.

As a result, a team of five developers brought the pages up to WCAG 2.0 AA and WCAG 2.1 AA standards, which resulted in VPAT certifications for accessibility for people with disabilities and ADA compliance.

A new framework with updated components was also developed to create new articles and content that meet the ever-evolving accessibility criteria, making it easier for editors to do their jobs. All of these tools make it possible to sell educational materials to schools and universities in the U.S. and minimize the risk of legal action against the company.
A new round of accessibility work is launched in conjunction with UsableNet to help conduct the necessary website and content audits.