The honest accessibility pitch

Most accessibility products will tell you they make your site "compliant" or "ADA-safe." That's a lie. The actual truth — the version a disability rights lawyer would defend — is harder to sell, so most vendors don't say it.

What overlays don't do

An AI-powered "accessibility overlay" injects JavaScript into your site that tries, at runtime, to add ARIA attributes, alt text, and keyboard handlers to elements that don't have them. In principle, this could help. In practice:

• Screen reader users report that overlays often make their experience worse, not better.
• Overlays cannot fix semantic issues — a non-clickable div used as a button stays broken.
• Courts have not accepted overlay installation as a defense against ADA suits.
• The underlying HTML is still inaccessible; you've just hidden it behind a script.

Why axe-core

uniqu's scanner uses axe-core, Deque Systems' open-source accessibility rule engine. It's the engine used by government auditors, enterprise accessibility teams, and accessibility consultancies worldwide. Its rules are public, deterministic, and reviewable.

When uniqu says you have a WCAG 1.1.1 violation on a specific image, that finding is reproducible by anyone with a browser. There's no proprietary AI black box.

What uniqu actually does

1. Adds a real, useful visitor-facing toolbar with persistent preferences.
2. Scans your site on a schedule and on demand against the same WCAG rules a real auditor would use.
3. Tells you, in plain English with click-by-click steps for your CMS, exactly how to fix each issue.
4. Lets you mark issues fixed and re-scan to verify.

What uniqu does not promise

• We do not claim to make your site legally compliant. Only review by a qualified human can do that.
• We do not guarantee you won't be sued. The lawsuit climate is structural, not technical.
• We are not lawyers. If you receive a demand letter, talk to one.

If you've been sued

You're not alone. Plaintiff firms like Manning Law have filed thousands of ADA-related web complaints, mostly aimed at small businesses with thin margins. The Press Democrat documented six such suits in Sonoma County alone since September 2025 — against a coffee shop, a pizza place, a bakery, and others.

Installing uniqu after the demand letter arrives won't make the suit go away. (Even bringing your site into compliance often doesn't.) But going forward, uniqu gives you the honest tooling to actually remediate, document, and stay accessible.

Article reference: Phil Barber, "Growing group of Sonoma County small businesses hit by website-based discrimination claims," The Press Democrat, May 12, 2026.