Widgets promise accessibility in the UAE, but they’re falling short. Discover a better approach.
In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), providing accessible products, services, and experiences means your business can welcome all customers, stay compliant with laws such as Federal Law No. 29, and build trust and loyalty with your audience to drive business objectives.
Unfortunately, many UAE businesses are turning to accessibility widgets to try and achieve their accessibility goals. While their intentions are good—wanting to make their websites more inclusive—they’re using tools that create more problems than they solve.
In this post, we’ll look at why accessibility widgets fall short and reveal an approach that actually works.
Why widgets don’t work for digital accessibility
Here’s what to know about the challenges and limitations of accessibility widgets:
1. Widgets address symptoms, not causes.
Widgets may adjust colors or add a screen reader button, but they can’t address fundamental issues like keyboard navigation or proper HTML structure that make a site truly accessible.
2. Widgets don’t fulfill compliance requirements
Most widgets only partially meet WCAG standards, leaving your business exposed to legal risk.
3. Widgets cause performance issues
Widgets add extra code that can slow your site down significantly. Given that current research indicates that 40% of online users will leave a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load, this is a major issue.
With their lower cost, easy setup, and quick results, widgets can seem appealing. But relying on them will cost you in the long run. They give you a false sense of security, when the truth is that your business is still at risk. Even worse, you’re likely to keep creating the same issues over and over again.
Widgets are reactive. Accessibility must be proactive.
Widgets are inherently reactive. They are added after websites are published. They don’t prevent issues from occurring. At best, they can only flag issues after they’re already live. This is not a real solution. What you want instead is to be proactive, so that you’re preventing issues from happening in the first place.
To get and stay compliant for the long term, you need to build in accessibility from the start. An approach called “shifting left,” which involves conducting accessibility testing early in the design and development stages, enables you to catch and fix accessibility issues sooner. Businesses embracing this approach can save money, free up their teams for high-value work, and create better, more accessible products.
As you consider how your organization will approach digital accessibility going forward, remember that there are better solutions than widgets that are equally cost-effective, easy to use, and quick to deliver results. Best of all, they’ll help you become more proactive and shift left, which is the best way to get ahead of accessibility once and for all.
What to look for in a proactive digital accessibility solution
Ideally, you’ll want an accessibility solution that tackles root causes and not symptoms, prioritizes high-impact issues, and helps to ensure full compliance with relevant laws and standards.
- Choose an approach that addresses and solves root causes and goes beyond surface fixes by:
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- Using an advanced rules library to identify structural HTML issues at the code level
- Implementing W3C-approved solutions for keyboard navigation and focus management
- Addressing accessibility barriers in the development lifecycle (shift-left!)
- Choose an approach that addresses high-impact issues and makes sites truly accessible through:
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- Semantic HTML restructuring that works with all assistive technologies
- Comprehensive form labeling and error identification
- Dynamic content updates that remain accessible to screen readers
- Mobile accessibility that follows iOS and Android guidelines
- Choose an approach that ensures comprehensive, long-term compliance with all relevant laws and standards via:
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- WCAG 2.1 AA and UAE Federal Law No. 29 compliance verification
- Automated regression testing integrated into development pipelines
- Real-time monitoring for continuous compliance
Why moving beyond widgets matters for your business
We’ve seen how widgets fall short of creating truly accessible experiences. Now let’s explore why getting accessibility right matters so much for your business in the UAE.
The UAE government has shown strong leadership in digital inclusion through policies such as:
- The National Policy for Empowering People of Determination, which ensures equal access to education, employment, and digital services
- Dubai’s Disability Strategy 2020, which is focused on making Dubai fully accessible across physical and digital spaces.
- Federal Law No. 29, which mandates accessibility for all digital platforms.
Choosing a comprehensive and proactive digital accessibility solution over quick-fix widgets means you’re not just complying with these important initiatives—you’re unlocking key business benefits, including:
- Expanding your customer base. With over 1 billion people worldwide living with disabilities, an accessible website means welcoming everyone to engage with your business. That means more customers, more sales, and broader reach.
- Building a trusted brand reputation. In the UAE’s competitive market, customers remember brands that prioritize inclusion. Accessible experiences show you value all users, creating deeper, longer-lasting brand loyalty.
- Limiting legal risks. Compliance with accessibility standards limits your exposure to lawsuits and fines that can hurt your bottom line and damage your reputation.
- Saving time and money. Getting proactive about digital accessibility and embracing a shift-left approach enables you to build in accessibility from the start. With advanced automation tools, you can catch up to 80% of all accessibility issues early. This leads to faster fixes, lower costs, and no expensive rework later. It’s an ideal way to get and stay compliant and avoid more significant risks.
The choice is clear: temporary, superficial widget fixes deliver temporary, superficial results, while comprehensive, proactive digital accessibility solutions create lasting impact and value.
This is our approach at Deque. If you’d like to experience how simple digital accessibility can be, start today with a free trial!
