Stephen Hoang / Case study 03
Challenging the Accessibility Software Status Quo
How I made the case for a simpler, more transparent accessibility testing strategy and eliminated $5,260 in annual subscription costs.
- Technology strategy
- Vendor evaluation
- Stakeholder influence
- Cost management
- Considered
- ~$20,000/year enterprise platform
- Decision
- Focused testing tool; overlay removed
- Savings
- $5,260 per year
Vendors were offering a $20,000-a-year ecosystem
When I started evaluating our accessibility software, vendors were offering increasingly comprehensive—and expensive—packages. One enterprise platform cost approximately $20,000 annually.
The offerings combined automated testing, dashboards, monitoring, reporting, and additional services. But I wasn't convinced we needed an entire software ecosystem to manage accessibility effectively.
We also had an accessibility overlay installed on our website, and I questioned whether that additional layer was making it harder to understand the accessibility of the underlying site.
I wanted us to spend money on tools that helped us identify and resolve real problems, rather than buying features we might never need.
Separating what we needed from what was being sold
I began by separating our operational requirements from the features vendors were selling.
Project evidence
Operational needs versus the vendor bundle
The left column is the kind of feature list vendors led with. The right column is what we actually needed to operate. Only part of the bundle mapped to real needs—and one need, keeping knowledge in-house, wasn't something a subscription could provide.
What the enterprise bundle offered
- Automated testing
- Executive dashboards
- Continuous monitoring
- Bundled reporting
- Add-on services
What we actually needed
- Reliable testing
- Understandable findings
- Repeatable reporting
- A way to coordinate remediation
- Knowledge and decisions kept internal
After evaluating enterprise offerings, I recommended a more focused website auditing solution. It supported the core testing tasks we needed without requiring a comprehensive annual governance subscription.
The overlay was obscuring the real website
The existing overlay introduced automated modifications to the website, which complicated our ability to understand underlying accessibility problems.
I believed we would be better served by removing that layer and resolving accessibility issues directly in the website's content and code. Removing it would also eliminate an ongoing subscription expense.
Project evidence
What sat between our website and our test results
Follow each column top to bottom. Before, the overlay (dashed red) modified the page between our code and the scanner, so results didn't clearly describe the real site. After, the scanner tested the code we actually owned and could fix.
Before
- Website content and code
- Overlay modifies the page
- Testing tool
- Results: hard to interpret
After
- Website content and code
- Testing tool
- Results: describe the real site
A month of advocacy to change direction
This wasn't an immediately accepted recommendation. I spent approximately a month advocating for a different approach, focused on three arguments:
- Clarity of our accessibility findings
- The actual capabilities we needed
- The value of keeping governance decisions inside the organization
I wasn't suggesting that enterprise platforms were inherently poor products. I was arguing that their broader offerings were not the best match for our needs.
Ultimately, the agency adopted the specialist testing tool and discontinued the accessibility overlay.
$5,260 a year eliminated, and clearer test results
Project evidence
Annual subscription expense eliminated
The decision eliminated $5,260 in annual subscription expense. For context, the bar above it shows the approximate annual cost of the enterprise platform we chose not to adopt.
Removing the overlay also made our automated testing results easier to interpret, allowing us to assess underlying website issues without an additional software layer interfering.
We retained a focused testing solution while continuing to manage accessibility priorities, remediation decisions, and reporting internally—a leaner approach that better matched our operational needs.
What I learned: more features don't mean better outcomes
This experience reinforced the importance of questioning the assumptions behind technology purchases.
It also showed me that technical judgment is only part of influencing a decision. I needed to explain the trade-offs, defend an alternative approach, and help stakeholders understand why changing direction made sense.