A Washington, DC public affairs agency learned that several members of its trade association client could not use the association’s website with screen readers. With an annual conference eight weeks away, the agency engaged Softvole for white label ADA website compliance services: a WCAG 2.2 AA audit, remediation across 300 pages, and a process to keep the site accessible.
fewer automated accessibility errors
fewer manual audit issues
key user journeys passing screen reader tests
pages audited and remediated
The ADA does not list technical website rules for private organizations, but courts and the Department of Justice commonly point to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as the reference standard. The association adopted WCAG 2.2 AA as its target, which is a practical, measurable goal.
Softvole audited the site with automated tools and manual testing, fixed issues in the theme and templates first, then worked through content, forms, and PDFs. The agency presented the audit report and progress updates under its own brand.
Executive summary
Short answer: ADA website compliance services audit a website against WCAG, usually version 2.1 or 2.2 at level AA, fix the issues found, and set up monitoring. Softvole remediated a DC trade association’s 300-page site, reducing automated errors 99%. No vendor can guarantee legal immunity, but documented WCAG conformance reduces risk.
| Project detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Agency | Independent US design agency |
| End-client | Multi-location wellness and recovery clinic franchise |
| Scope | White label multi-location WordPress development, 9 locations, from approved Figma |
| Stack | WordPress, Elementor Pro, ACF, appointment-request integration |
| Delivery | 15 working days after approval |
| Follow-up | 8 weeks of reporting |
The association’s site had grown over a decade: a WordPress theme, a member portal, a third-party event registration form, and more than 400 policy PDFs. Nobody had tested any of it with assistive technology.
Two member organizations with blind staff wrote to the association’s board after being unable to register for the previous year’s conference online.
Registration and renewal forms had unlabeled fields, error messages that screen readers did not announce, and a CAPTCHA with no accessible alternative.
Low contrast, missing focus indicators, and a navigation menu that keyboard users could not open affected every page at once.
Hundreds of PDFs were scanned images with no text layer, impossible for screen readers to read.
The automated scan produced a long list, but manual testing found the problems that actually stopped members from completing tasks. We grouped findings by user impact rather than by count.
| Barrier | Who it blocked | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Main menu could not be opened by keyboard | Keyboard and screen reader users | Every page |
| Form errors not announced | Screen reader users | Registration, renewal, contact |
| Image-only CAPTCHA with no alternative | Blind and low-vision users | Registration |
| Low-contrast gray body text | Low-vision users | Every page |
| Scanned PDFs without text | Screen reader users | Policy library |
| Videos without captions | Deaf and hard-of-hearing users | Webinar archive |
The registration form had three separate barriers, which explains why members with blind staff could not register. The audit standard was WCAG 2.2 AA, which the Department of Justice’s web accessibility guidance points to as a helpful reference.
We fixed shared templates before individual pages, because a single theme fix often resolves hundreds of errors at once.
Automated scans across all 300 pages, plus manual testing with keyboard only, NVDA, VoiceOver, and zoom at 200% and 400% on 30 representative templates and journeys.
Contrast, focus indicators, skip links, heading order, landmark regions, and a fully keyboard-accessible menu. These changes cleared most automated errors.
Labeled fields, announced errors, an accessible CAPTCHA alternative, and a rebuilt event registration flow tested end to end with screen readers.
The 40 most-used PDFs were converted to accessible HTML pages. The remaining library was prioritized for tagged PDF remediation by the association’s staff, with a guide we wrote for them.
An accessibility statement with a feedback contact, a 60-minute editor training session presented by the agency, and monthly automated scans in the care plan.
We compared the initial audit with a full retest completed one week before the conference. The remaining manual issues sit in a third-party plugin the vendor has agreed to fix, and are documented with workarounds.
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automated accessibility errors (300 pages) | 2,318 | 14 | -99% |
| Issues found in manual testing | 187 | 8 | -96% |
| Templates passing keyboard-only testing | 9 | 30 | +233% |
| Key user journeys passing screen reader tests | 0 | 6 | +6 |
| Online conference registrations from members using assistive technology | 0 | 23 | +23 |
Accessibility decays as content changes. The association’s care plan includes monthly automated scans, a quarterly manual check of key journeys, and a review of any new plugin before installation. Editors follow a one-page guide covering headings, links, images, tables, and documents.
These results describe conformance testing, not a legal opinion; the association’s counsel reviewed the accessibility statement. For broader context, read our WordPress audit guide, the credit union theme case where accessibility was built into components from the start, and our redesign service for sites that need rebuilding rather than patching.
We would train editors in week one instead of week six, so new content stays compliant while remediation is underway. We would also contact third-party plugin vendors as soon as their components fail testing, giving them more time to ship fixes before an event.
Softvole services used: White Label Website Redesign, Website Care and Optimization.
Related guides: WordPress audit, accessible themes, site care checklist.
External references:
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Shared theme fixes resolve the largest number of issues fastest.
Automated overlays do not fix underlying code. Real remediation changes the theme, forms, and content.
Promise WCAG conformance testing and documentation. Leave legal conclusions to counsel.
Softvole’s service includes a WCAG 2.2 AA audit with automated and manual testing, remediation of themes, forms, and content, an accessibility statement, editor training, and ongoing monitoring.
WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 at level AA is the most widely used reference. Softvole recommends WCAG 2.2 AA for new remediation work.
No. Overlays can add helper tools, but they do not fix the underlying code. Accessibility depends on proper templates, forms, content, and testing.
No vendor can guarantee that. Softvole provides documented WCAG testing and remediation, which reduces risk. Legal questions belong with the client’s attorney.
Proof before promises
A Raleigh marketing firm wanted to stop selling one-off contractor websites at thin margins and become
We compared the agency’s last six custom contractor builds in 2025 with the first five months of the subscription platform (April to August 2026).
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build hours per site | 34 | 9 | -74% |
| Days from signup to launch | 31 | 8 | -74% |
| Sites launched per month | 2 | 9 | +350% |
| Care hours per site per month | 1.6 | 0.4 | -75% |
| Monthly cancellation rate | 3.5% | 1.4% | -2.1 pts |
A Brooklyn design studio had built an architecture firm’s original Squarespace site in 2021. Four years
We compared the 56 days before launch with the 56 days after launch. We also confirmed that late fall is not a seasonal peak for the firm’s inquiries.
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Project inquiries (56 days) | 46 | 68 | +48% |
| Average portfolio pages viewed per session | 2.3 | 4.1 | +78% |
| Minutes to publish a new project | 120 | 25 | -79% |
| Median mobile LCP on project pages, lab (seconds) | 6.2s | 2.1s | -66% |
| Projects published in the period | 2 | 7 | +250% |
A Seattle content marketing agency serving B2B SaaS companies had 140 open WordPress tickets across nine
We compared Q4 2025, before the engagement, with Q2 2026, the second full quarter with the dedicated developer.
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open WordPress tickets (end of period) | 140 | 12 | -91% |
| Median ticket turnaround (business days) | 4.8 | 1.0 | -79% |
| Tickets closed per quarter | 96 | 241 | +151% |
| Missed content publish dates per quarter | 17 | 2 | -88% |
| Pages built by writers without a ticket | 0 | 63 | +63 |
A Repeatable Workflow
Bring a client brief, an approved Figma file, or a project your internal team cannot take on right now. We will scope the work, identify dependencies, and tell you what it would take to deliver it under your brand.
