Level Access

Level Access Review

What is Level Access?

As far as web accessibility is concerned, the most effective way is for organizations to incorporate accessibility into their existing development processes efficiently.

Level Access is a comprehensive digital accessibility solutions provider. They offer a stack of software solutions useful at every stage of the development lifecycle. They also provide services such as accessibility audits in the form of automated and manual testing, strategic consulting, and monitoring compliance against standards and regulations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Equality Act of 2010 (EQA), and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 AA). Level Access also presents one of the most robust digital accessibility libraries for your team to learn how to incorporate accessibility into design, development, and testing.

The catch here is what Level Access is mainly known for – a suite of digital accessibility tools and a wealth of resources. Let’s examine why they are one of the most reliable names in the industry.

Level Access Service(s) and Features

In a bid to ensure accessibility is done proactively and taken to be part of normal development and QA practices, Level Access provides a range of accessibility suites that can be adopted during development and across the entire development cycle.

Level Access’s robust Accessibility Management Platform (AMP) is designed to handle all digital accessibility initiatives across your organization. It is an all-in-one web-based platform with a powerful accessibility testing engine (Access Engine) that provides an infrastructure for organizations to streamline workflow for efficiency in accessibility efforts.

AMP allows for straightforward automated testing of what needs to be evaluated and, at the same time, provides support to maintain compliance through personalized reporting.

With easy-to-use testing tools, AMP can test to identify accessibility barriers and measure compliance against accessibility regulations and standards such as WCAG 2.0/2.1 AA, AAA, Section 508, and any other digital accessibility laws. The platform also includes a complete suite of manual test cases that guide through the manual tests that should be run on mobile applications to evaluate accessibility. The AMP allows users to generate detailed reports (of current accessibility status and compliance rate) in different formats. The report provides details such as the severity of violations, the estimated level of effort required to fix issues, and actionable information such as affected modules, violation prioritization, code-level explanations, best practices for fixing discovered issues, examples, and recommendations. 

Beyond testing and analyzing, the platform also guides a library of training courses and best practices for organizations to integrate accessibility knowledge into development practices. Like Deque, Level Access’ University offers a wealth of on-demand resources to increase your team’s expertise. It provides unlimited access to a library of digital accessibility courses to educate your team on incorporating accessibility in the design, development, and auditing/testing of digital systems.

Level Access’ Access Continuum is a separate suite of tools that allows you to test for common accessibility violations across software development life cycles and remove them early. The Access Continuum software development toolkit supports different frameworks. Also, it provides access to Level Access’ best practices libraries (to guide developers in fixing) and documentation with descriptions of technology, installation, usage instructions, etc.

Level Access offers a comprehensive accessibility audit as a separate service. They combine their automated testing technology with functional testing by accessibility experts who make use of assistive technology. This is to discover usability issues further and create a vivid picture of the system’s compliance with accessibility standards and laws and its accessibility to people with disabilities. Upon completion of the evaluation, Level Access specialists prioritize your remediation plan and develop a clear remediation strategy based on overall risk, budget, and timeframe while guiding your team and building their knowledge along in the process.

Access Analytics is a monitoring solution for detecting accessibility issues after an initial audit. It presents a dashboard that offers easy-to-understand summaries that can guide an organization’s accessibility journey. Access Analytics helps you keep a close eye on your current compliance level and quickly identify critical areas to plan remediation right away efficiently. Level Access also has specific toolkits (Continuum for Mobile) that can be used to perform automated accessibility tests of mobile systems (iOS, Android native applications, and hybrid apps) for compliance with standards.​ Continuum for Mobile provides the toolkits for developers to integrate the effective Access Engine and best practices into the mobile application development lifecycle. As with all of its platforms, your team also has access to educational resources on iOS or Android mobile accessibility.

Level Access strategic consulting covers all our accessibility needs, including testing, remediation, or guide to remediation, training, and ongoing compliance. The training can be self-paced, online, and customized to meet your organization’s needs in terms of roles, timeline, and accessibility objectives. They also help develop the organization’s internal accessibility policy to ensure your team can design, build, and test with accessibility in mind to maintain ADA, WCAG, and Section 508-compliant websites and apps. This will ensure your team can catch common issues earlier in development and provide a cost-effective and more efficient development process. 

Level Access Pricing

Level Access has different pricing for its various software tools and services. As with every manual solution, services are bespoke according to the organization’s accessibility requirements (software tools, audit, remediation, training, or consultation). To get a quote, you’ll need to request a demo.

Level Access Platform and Support

As with most comprehensive manual accessibility solutions, Level Access works when you get in touch via different mediums during business hours or online.

Level Access gives room to get in touch via mail or hop on a phone call with an accessibility expert. On reaching out, their specialists quickly conduct a risk assessment (scan of sample pages) of your website using their custom tools to identify your current compliance level against Section 508 or WCAG 2.1 and help preview the next steps. Like how their tools provide access to libraries, Level Access also provides guidance support for comprehensive audit and remediation services. You can also find tons of accessibility resources and expert insights from the content.

Why Level Access? Pros and Cons

Level Access offers accessibility software solutions with a custom accessibility audit, on-demand remediation, strategic consulting, training, and top-level support to ensure your digital systems are accessible and compliant with standards. Let us examine some identified pros and cons:

The Final Verdict On Level Access

The most efficient and cost-effective approach to digital accessibility is integration throughout development processes. This is what Level Access is renowned for providing a secure SaaS platform to enable developer integrations and ensure accessibility testing and monitoring during the development process. 

The versatile Accessibility Management Platform (AMP) is efficiently customizable for straightforward testing behind authentication and further development (there is a little bit of a learning curve here in the user interface and experience, though). With cloud-based AMP, you can quickly and efficiently build, test, and maintain accessible digital systems. Similarly, you can embed automated accessibility tests within your existing development with Access Continuum, which integrates with popular testing frameworks. Access Analytics covers your accessibility monitoring of ongoing compliance. Like every other Level Access platform, it offers access to a library of best practices and courses for your team to build and maintain WCAG, ADA, and Section 508-compliant websites or apps.

Outsourcing accessibility or remediation can be expensive and not necessarily sustainable. Still, Level Access’ audit is comprehensive enough to identify HTML and functional issues, leaving your team with a clear remediation strategy. The audit also puts your team in an actionable position to remove all violations and comply with the required standards. Level Access also fosters inclusive digital systems through its strategic consulting, training, and accessibility integration. This way, your team can be self-reliant in its accessibility commitment hence preventing retrofitting.

The tools, expertise, resources, track record, and processes rightly set Level Access apart as an industry leader in digital accessibility. Worked with Level Access or tried the AMP (Accessibility Management Platform)? Let us hear from you.