A question we get asked a lot at Conscious is whether law firms should add an accessibility overlay or assistive toolbar widget on their website.
My short answer to the question is: no!
In this blog, I will walk you through why this is the case.
We’ll cover
- What is an accessibility widget (including overlays vs toolbars)
- Whether accessibility widgets help
- Privacy concerns with accessibility widgets
- What regulators and the disabled community think of them
- What we recommend law firms do instead of using an overlay
What is an accessibility widget?
An accessibility widget can seem like an easy answer for a busy law firm. They are often marketed as a single line of third-party code with the promise of making your law firm website more accessible to people with disabilities.
The widget often appears as a floating button, either with some text saying ‘Accessibility tools’, or as a button with the accessibility icon. When discussing their impact, it is important to understand the difference between a toolbar and an overlay:
- Assistive toolbar: presents a menu of controls that let visitors make adjustments to the website, such as changing colour contrast, enlarging text, or changing other display settings. They also may have additional assistive technology such as a built-in screen reader.
- Accessibility overlay: offers on-the-fly accessibility remediation, sometimes using AI. It modifies the coding of the website for the end-user with the aim of presenting a more accessible experience. An example might be adding alt text to images which were previously missing them or adding missing form input labels.
The widgets on the market may be a toolbar, overlay or combination of both. Within the industry, ‘overlay’ is often used as an umbrella term for both, however I have used the narrower definitions as the two types carry different risks.
Do accessibility widgets actually help?
If (…and that’s a big if) these widgets worked as advertised, automated tools can only ever catch a very small number of accessibility barriers (around 30-50%). Manual testing would still be required alongside any widget to ensure a strong accessible experience.
In reality, these products have been widely criticised as being ineffective, or worse, introducing more accessibility barriers and worsening the experience for people who rely on assistive technology.
There is a slight difference between the impact of the two types. Let’s start with looking at toolbars.
Do assistive toolbars help?
Toolbars may appear helpful, but their real-world value is often exaggerated.
Every major operating system (Windows, macOS, Android) or web browser (Chrome, Edge, Safari) has highly effective native accessibility features. A user can set up system or browser-wide settings that apply across every web page they visit.
Imagine someone who is blind and uses a screen reader to interact with digital content. They do not switch on their screen reader only when they come to your website. They use it everywhere across their devices; for reading text messages, browsing on Google and opening an email application. Research from the Nielsen Norman group found that screen reader users do not consider accessibility toolbars helpful.
There are edge cases, such as a visitor using an old public computer without modern assistive tools. But that user is highly unlikely to have the time or patience to learn how to use a new accessibility widget on every website they visit. If you currently have a toolbar on your website, make sure you track its usage to verify if it is actually worthwhile.
Some of these toolbars don’t change the underlying code of the site, so there is low risk of them actively worsening the experience, but they may not actually be used much by the people they were designed for. These toolbars often end up a costly duplicate of functionality that your visitor already has.
What about accessibility overlays?
Overlays, however, are not quite so benign. They can dynamically modify the code of a website, but are notorious for producing unreliable and inaccurate results, sometimes getting in the way of users’ own preferred tools.
Some overlays have been reported to introduce new accessibility issues, and some screen reader users report choosing to block overlays altogether because they worsen the website experience.
They are often incompatible with modern component-based frameworks such as React, where page changes happen independently of the overlay. They also cannot fix all barriers, such as those in PDFs or embedded media.
Privacy concerns with accessibility widgets
These tools also introduce privacy concerns. Some have been found to set persistent cookies without permission, and can expose when someone is using assistive technology. Someone’s disability is sensitive personal data and collecting it without informed consent can present risks under the GDPR.
Accessibility overlays may attract reputational and legal risk
Perhaps the biggest reason not to use an accessibility widget is the overwhelming discourse against them from the digital accessibility community. The people these widgets claim to serve have been remarkably vocal in their criticism of these tools.
The Overlay Fact Sheet, an open letter maintained at overlayfactsheet.com, showcases detailed objections from individuals in the field, including accessibility experts who work at Google, Microsoft and Apple, lawyers for disabled people, and many disabled users themselves.
Regulators have gone further than just criticising the tools. In January 2025, the US Federal Trade Commission ordered the overlay vendor accessiBe to pay $1million for marketing which claimed its widget could make any website WCAG compliant. At least one major overlay vendor has also faced a class action from its own customers, brought after a customer was sued over website accessibility despite using the widget.
If your law firm operates in the EU, your presence may fall within the European Accessibility Act (EAA), and using these widgets could open you up to legal risk. The European Disability Forum and the International Association of Accessibility Professionals have jointly stated that overlays do not make a website compliant with European accessibility legislation and are no substitute for fixing the website itself.
They may also hurt your brand
It is pretty clear that accessibility widgets are viewed poorly by regulators, accessibility experts, and most importantly by the disabled people who they were designed for.
When this is the consensus, even using a toolbar to supplement an already accessible website could put your reputation at risk. It may signal to your website visitors that you view accessibility as a quick fix, rather than something worth investing in.
What should a law firm do instead to aid accessibility?
To really help more users access your website and mitigate legal risk, digital accessibility needs to be an ongoing and iterative process that is a core part of your digital strategy. Accessibility needs to be addressed at the source, and should be considered in every phase of your digital process, including design, coding and content creation.
Law firms that prioritise accessibility build the following into their business:
- Regular cycles of auditing, remediation and monitoring
- Manual testing with people with disabilities
- Thorough documentation of any fixes you’ve made
- Clear accessibility statements on their websites
- Firm-wide accessibility training
We help law firms with accessibility audits and build a plan to remediate and monitor accessibility barriers. It is more work than just installing a quick line of code, but the only approach that helps avoid legal risk and, more importantly, serves your users.
For more information on this, check out our website services page here and contact a member of the team at sales@conscious.co.uk.