Accessibility overlays and widgets

If you look after a website for a town, a library, a school or a small business, someone has probably offered you "one line of code" that makes it accessible or "ADA compliant". Here's what these products do, what federal agencies have said about them, and what helps instead.

What an overlay is

An accessibility overlay is a script added to your website, usually by pasting one line of code or installing an app from your website builder's app store. It typically does one or both of these:

• A widget: a button on every page that opens a menu of settings, such as bigger text, higher contrast, a reading guide or "screen reader mode".
• Automatic repairs: code that tries to fix problems as each page loads, such as guessing alt text for pictures or labels for form boxes.

They're usually sold by subscription, and some are sold with the claim that they make a site "compliant".

What the FTC found

In January 2025 the Federal Trade Commission charged one overlay company over its claim that its plug-in "can make any website compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)". The FTC said the plug-in didn't make all its customers' websites meet WCAG, and that the claims were "false, misleading, or unsubstantiated".

On April 22, 2025 the FTC made its order final:

• The company had to pay $1 million.
• It may not claim its automated products can make any website meet WCAG, or keep it meeting WCAG, unless it has the evidence.
• It may not pass off reviews and articles it was connected to as independent opinions. The FTC said it had done that too.

The head of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection said: "Overstating a product's AI or other capabilities without adequate evidence is deceptive, and the FTC will act to stop it." Read the FTC's announcement of the final order.

So when you read a glowing "independent" review of an overlay, check who wrote it.

What the Department of Justice says

The Department's guidance on web accessibility and the ADA (March 2022) says automated checkers and overlays "can be helpful tools, but like other automated tools such as spelling or grammar checkers, they need to be used carefully." It adds: "A 'clean' report does not necessarily mean everything is accessible." It recommends pairing a manual check with automated tools.

For towns, counties, libraries and school districts, the ADA Title II web rule names a standard, WCAG 2.1 level AA, for the content you provide: pages, documents, videos, forms and apps. A script running on top of the page doesn't caption your meeting videos, fix your PDFs or rebuild a vendor's payment form. More on the rule: for town, city and county websites.

Why a widget can't do it

The Overlay Fact Sheet, written and signed by accessibility specialists, sums it up: "full compliance cannot be achieved with an overlay." Its reasons, in plain words:

• Guessed alt text is unreliable. Software can't know why a photo is on your page or what it should tell people.
• Forms and keyboard access are hard to repair automatically. The fact sheet calls automatic repair of form labels, error messages and keyboard access "not reliable".
• It doesn't touch files. Overlays don't repair PDFs or media files, so your documents and videos are unchanged.
• People already have their own tools. Someone who uses a screen reader, a magnifier or high contrast has set it up on their own device, for every website. A second set of controls on your site is extra, and can get in the way.
• Privacy. Some overlays detect a visitor's assistive technology, which reveals that they have a disability.
• The fixes go when the script goes. Cancel the subscription and the site is back where it started.

Browsers and phones already let people zoom, change colors and have pages read aloud. That's what a widget's menu repeats.

What to do instead

1. Find the problems. Run Full Check on your home page and busiest pages.
2. Describe your pictures. Picture Check finds pictures with no description; the Alt text writer drafts one for you to check.
3. Fix faint text. Color check tells you if your colors are readable and suggests the nearest that are.
4. Label your forms and buttons. Accessibility Check finds form boxes, links and buttons a screen reader can't name.
5. Try it with the keyboard. Put the mouse away and press Tab. Can you reach and use everything, and see where you are?
6. Caption your videos and correct the automatic captions.
7. Say how to report a problem. The Accessibility statement generator writes the page for you.

Automated checks, ours included, find many common problems but not all of them. For a bigger site, ask an accessibility specialist to test it with real assistive technology (screen readers, voice control, switches).

If you already have one

Don't count it as the fix. Work through the steps above on the website itself. Whether to keep the widget is your call; if visitors tell you it gets in the way of their screen reader or settings, take it off.

If someone is selling you one, ask them to put in writing that it will make your website meet WCAG 2.1 AA, what it does to your PDFs and videos, and what data it collects about your visitors.