We’re sometimes asked why we don’t install one of the many “ADA compliance” or accessibility plugins for WordPress. The short answer: most of them are overlays, and overlays are not accessibility.
What an overlay is
An accessibility overlay is third-party JavaScript that loads on top of an existing site and claims to detect and “fix” accessibility problems automatically — usually marketed with promises of instant compliance and protection from lawsuits.
Why we don’t use them
Overlays don’t repair the underlying code; they layer over it. In doing so they frequently interfere with the very tools disabled people rely on — screen readers, keyboard navigation, and the personal settings a visitor has already configured. The result is that overlays often make a site harder to use for the people they claim to help. Dissatisfaction is widespread enough that some disabled users run tools specifically to block overlays from loading at all.
The clearest summary of the evidence is the Overlay Fact Sheet, a reference supported by more than 800 accessibility professionals and organizations, which documents the many ways overlays fail Disabled users. For a WordPress-specific treatment, Equalize Digital’s Don’t Fall for the WordPress ADA Compliance Plugin Myth covers the same ground.
Many WordPress ADA compliance plugins are actually overlays—tools that attempt to “fix” accessibility with JavaScript on top of your existing site. These products often claim they’ll protect you from lawsuits and bring instant compliance.
But overlays don’t fix the underlying problems in your code. Worse, they can interfere with screen readers, keyboard navigation, and user preferences. As a result, overlays often frustrate the very people they’re supposed to help.
We encourage you to review the Overlay Fact Sheet, a resource supported by over 800 accessibility professionals and organizations, which outlines the many ways overlays fail users with disabilities.
Don’t Fall for the WordPress ADA Compliance Plugin Myth – Equalize Digital
Many users with disabilities have expressed strong words of dissatisfaction with overlay products. As shown below, overlays themselves may have accessibility problems significant enough for users to take steps to actively block overlays from appearing at all.
What we do instead
We build access into the structure rather than bolting it on: semantic markup, working keyboard and screen-reader support, and respect for the preferences people already set for themselves — operating-system dark mode, reduced-motion settings, and browser font choices. Where a control genuinely helps, we add one that defers to those preferences instead of overriding them: our theme, reading-font, and text-size controls all start from the visitor’s own settings and never force our choices over a browser or OS override.
Access is infrastructure. It belongs in the foundation, not in a script layered on afterward.