Accessibility is no longer optional. As digital experiences become deeply woven into daily life, a large portion of web content remains inaccessible to users with visual, auditory, cognitive, or motor impairments. For organizations maintaining legacy systems, achieving accessibility compliance can be daunting, often requiring significant resources, expertise, and time. With increasing legal mandates globally, the stakes for inclusive design have never been higher. Approaching accessibility purely as a compliancy requirement is also a missed opportunity as truly accessible digital experience delivers business benefits by boosting revenue, reduced costs, increased resilience and customer trust.
This case study showcases how AxessAI, an AI-powered accessibility co-pilot, helped shift accessibility testing left in the software development lifecycle, making accessibility modernization seamless, efficient, and developer-friendly.
The accessibility divide
Digital accessibility affects over 1 billion people worldwide. Yet, many organizations struggle to achieve compliance with WCAG standards.The challenges are intensified in legacy systems where outdated architectures, lack of accessibility proficiency, and resource constraints make modernization efforts overwhelming and difficult.
Without early intervention accessibility issues are often discovered late in development or post-deployment, leading to:
- Increased technical debt
- Expensive and time-consuming rework
- Missed deadlines and budget overruns
- Legal exposure due to non-compliance
This scenario demanded a paradigm shift—embedding accessibility checks early in the development process.
Challenges in legacy software organizations
- Reactive testing practices: Accessibility audits are typically performed after development, making remediation more complex. This is because accessibility checks require specialized skills and are not common in legacy organizations.
- Skill gaps: Developers lack sufficient domain knowledge to address accessibility violations effectively. Web accessibility is a relatively new topic which increases the chance of legacy software teams lacking it
- Competing priorities: Tight deadlines often push accessibility lower on the priority list. Like any other technical debt in the software, teams can overlook accessibility while they are working on building new features customer demands.
- Tool limitations: Existing tools flag issues but don’t provide actionable, context-aware fixes. Most of the auditing needs to be done at the rendered application, hence the tools are not focused on developer/development.
- Manual research overload: Accessibility guidelines often give multiple approaches to an issue and must be interpreted for context. Developers spend hours researching fixes, increasing turnaround time and reducing their focus on core development. Typically, the accessibility audit issues would not specifically tell how to fix them but rather options which developers need to research upon.
Approach
AxessAI was conceptualized and developed to tackle these challenges head-on by empowering developers with an AI co-pilot integrated into their IDE.
Key design principles
- Shift Left Accessibility Accessibility: Embed accessibility checks directly into the coding phase.
- Developer Empowerment: Provide domain expertise through AI-guided explanations and fixes.
- Seamless Workflow Integration: Minimize context switching by working within the developer’s IDE.
- Scalability & Performance: Design for enterprise-scale usage without compromising speed.
Technical solution
- RAG System: Built using DSPy, LangChain, OpenAI models, and Pinecone to create a vector knowledge base for semantic search.
- Expert Agent: Delivers concise, actionable guidance aligned with WCAG standards.
- Visual Studio Code Extension: Allows developers to scan live sites or local files, receive explanations, and apply fixes instantly.
- Evaluation Layer: Integrated RAGAS evaluation to measure AI responses and intent analysis performance.
Features
- Scans live or local websites for accessibility violations from the IDE itself
- Context-aware explanations with WCAG references for the issues reported right inside IDE
- One-click fixes applied directly to HTML files
- Natural language commands for intuitive interaction
- Access token-based backend security and configurability
What is axessai?
AxessAI is an AI-powered co-pilot designed as a Visual Studio Code extension. It enables developers to:
- Detect Accessibility Issues: Real-time scans of websites and local files.
- Understand the Violations: Expert guidance with standards references and practical examples.
- Fix Problems Immediately: Apply recommended changes with a single click.
- Stay Within Workflow: No need to switch tools or perform manual research.
Unlike traditional linters or browser plugins, AxessAI not only detects issues but also helps remediate them during development.
Key outcomes
- Reduced Turnaround Time: Fixes now occur in minutes.
- Improved Code Quality: Early remediation enhances code accessibility.
- Lower Cost of Compliance: Developers can resolve issues without engaging accessibility experts or waiting for external audit reports.
- Inclusive Development Culture: Accessibility became an integral part of everyday development practices eventually building a cross functional team who can tackle accessibility without external help.
- Iterative Improvement: Accessibility fixes are done as part of regular work, rather than separate projects. This mitigates time and budget concerns, when it’s approached as a separate project involving specialized personals.
Unique selling points
- Shift-Left Enablement: Proactively addresses accessibility at the source.
- Real-Time Guidance: Instant, context-aware recommendations embedded within VS Code.
- Actionable Fixes: Goes beyond detection to applying standards-based fixes.
- Minimal Learning Curve: Designed for developers without prior accessibility expertise.
- Cost-Effective: Low operational cost and scalable architecture.
- High Performance: Fast scans (<2 minutes), explanations, and fixes (<10 seconds).
Conclusion
AxessAI has successfully redefined accessibility modernization for legacy software organizations. By embedding accessibility testing and remediation into the development lifecycle, AxessAI empowers teams to build inclusive digital experiences efficiently and cost-effectively.
As accessibility standards continue to evolve and legal scrutiny intensifies, AxessAI offers a future-proof solution for organizations looking to bridge the accessibility divide while driving innovation.
References
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Let’s connect over a cup of coffee. Please email us at p.koning@devon.nl
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