388 - Website Accessibility Compliance with Erin Perkins
On today's episode of the podcast I chat with Erin Perkins, accessibility educator for small business owners and founder of Successible, a Chrome extension for entrepreneurs, agencies, and businesses that helps you finds the accessibility leaks in your content.
I'm a lifetime member of Successible, and Erin's trademark attorney.
About Erin
Erin identifies as deafblind, a spectrum on which the accessibility needs vary person to person. Erin wears a cochlear implant and hearing aids and her vision is 40-50 degree peripheral. She created Successible, which she describes as like spell check, but for accessibility. It allows you to check your website, your email, your courses before you actually click publish to make sure that they are accessible. Erin focuses her work on digital accessibility to create access to online spaces.
Digital Accessibility Example
A prime example of the need for digital accessibility is the Dominos lawsuit in 2019 where a blind man could not use screen-reading software to order food online. Domino's response was he could order in person because their physical location met accessibility standards. The Supreme Court ruled in the customer's favor and laws have been amended to address that you must have digital accessibility regardless of your physical accessibility.
Digital Accessibility Law
Governing law on accessibility varies by location, and the United Sates is really behind in the digital accessibility space compared to other countries. We'd rather focus on the European Accessibility Act because it is more in line with how technology is. It came to be June 28, 2025 and basically it require privates and public sector organization to make key digital product and services accessible with people with disability which align with the web content accessibility guideline 2.1 level AA.
The European Accessibility Act applies to us in America because your website is accessible worldwide. There are two exceptions: 1) If you are a microenterprise, which mean you're a business that has less than 10 employees and you make less than $2 million, you are generally exempt from that service requirement and 2) if it provides a disproportionate um economic burden which you have to prove formal documentation.
While this may not apply now, if you are aspiring to this point, you will have to go back and make everything on your website accessible once you hit that point and it will cost you a lot more down the road. Lawsuits do happen over website accessibility, and while you shouldn't live in fear, you should make sure to keep accessibility in mind as you grow.
What Does Successible Check For?
The Chrome extension is Erin's solution for business owners who want to be accessible without feeling they had to be an expert. It flags color contrast (which is one of the easiest fixes to make, you may just need to switch up your color combos or what brand color you put on what background), heading order (allows screen readers to read outlines to determine the sections and allow you to skim and decide what section to read more of), alt text (concise text that allows people who use screen reader to understand what's being communicated visually. If this image is going to take you somewhere when clicking on it, you'll need to put that in the alt text too), and video captions.
To see Successible in action, watch the demo mentioned in the episode at bradendrake.com/successible
Accessibility with AI
Language learning models like Claude don't have accessibility built in, so they don't take aspects like color contract into account when building, you'll need to give guidance.
Get in Touch with Erin Perkins
Connect with Erin on Threads @mabely_q
Check out Erin's website www.mabelyq.com
Try Successible for free at https://colorready.successible.co/