Storytime. I recently interviewed for an Accessibility Developer role. I hadn’t heard of the company before, and when I checked the overlay fact sheet, they weren’t listed. I noticed several prominent figures in the accessibility space promoting the role, and even some well-known disability activists were endorsing the company.
However, as the interview progressed, my heart dropped. I realised with a sinking feeling:
“Shit, this is an overlay company.”
An Accessibility overlay are these a one-click products that appears like a small icon, it’s supposed to fix all your issues, only it doesn’t.
I was tempted to just withdraw and move on, but I kept asking myself questions. These seemed like normal, nice people. Was this a case of poor education or active malice? Were they truly willing to exploit disabled people, or did they just not know any better? If they were properly educated, would they actually change their behaviour?
I decided to stay in the process to try and educate them from the inside. I wondered if they were willing to pivot as a company. The people interviewing me genuinely seemed to believe they needed a Developer with WCAG knowledge, which they did, just not in the way they might have initially thought.
Internal review
Initially, I got the sense they knew exactly what they were, but I wondered: why would they hire someone who is so vocal against these products? I concluded it was either a massive failure of due diligence (they hadn’t read a single thing I’d posted) or they genuinely didn’t believe they fell into the “overlay” category.
I watched their internal sales pitch and reviewed their training materials and pricing structures. I audited their marketing and spent time reviewing and experimenting with the product.
What struck me most was the sheer volume of misdirection. They would claim “we don’t fix the code” in one sentence, only to pivot and say “we fix the code” in the next. Overall, they sounded just as confused as the non-technical audience they were trying to mislead. It turned out none of them had ever worked with WCAG. Only one person was technical, and even they had zero experience in accessibility.
I’ve seen this model before: agencies with no accessibility background decide to set up shop and work it out as they go. They market themselves as industry leaders and only hire specialists once they’ve landed a client. The strategy is to sell first and figure it out later. I got the sense the large volume of competitors just validated their stance: “These companies are all doing fine, it must be OK.” However, one of these companies is currently facing a class action lawsuit via fraud.
Additionally, the product felt like a white label of another product. That’s the problem, I thought, these companies get sued and just start again under a different name.
Cognitive dissonance
I put together a presentation to explain why their product was an overlay, history and to educate them on the harm it causes. My final slide had a simple request:
Please discontinue this product and pivot
I suggested they can just change to become a proper accessibility company, do the actual work and discontinue this product. A major focus of my presentation was explaining cognitive dissonance. This is the mental discomfort experienced by someone who holds two or more contradictory beliefs or values at the same time.
Change the behavior
They could acknowledge the product is harmful and pivot the business model to focus on actual accessibility fixes, stopping the sale of the overlay product. This aligns their actions with the goal of real accessibility work.
Change the rationale
This is a defensive mechanism. Instead of fixing the problem, they find ways to justify the harm. They distort the facts or mislead to make the uncomfortable truth feel acceptable again: “Others are doing this, so we can,” or “We are a plugin, not an overlay.”
Ignore and continue
They could choose to live with the dissonance or bury it because it makes money. They mentally acknowledge the harm but decide that “paying the mortgage for my kids” is more important than the impact on the end-user and the disability community.
The outcome
A member of the team raised their voice and made accusations about me, but I figured you’re being told the company is doing harm. It wasn’t unexpected, it’s how people behave, it was fairly transparent.
I left after presenting hoping for the best, I received a follow-up email shortly after. They doubled down.
They chose to change their rationale rather than their behaviour. This confirmed what I feared: these are not just “uneducated” people. Once they know the truth, they continue anyway. It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Educating accessibility overlay companies from the inside doesn’t work
It was rubbish it was a decent setup, the search continues..