What an accessibility overlay actually is
An overlay (accessiBe, UserWay, AudioEye and similar tools) is a JavaScript snippet you paste into your theme. It runs in the visitor's browser and tries to patch accessibility problems on the fly — injecting ARIA labels, offering a contrast/font toolbar, intercepting keyboard focus. It never touches your store's actual HTML.
Why overlays keep failing merchants
They patch, they don't fixGuessed ARIA labels and reflowed focus order can conflict with assistive tech instead of helping it, especially on custom Shopify themes and apps the overlay wasn't built for.
Regulators have pushed backThe FTC ordered accessiBe to pay $1 million in 2025 for claiming its widget made sites WCAG-compliant when it did not.
DOJ guidance is explicitThe Department of Justice's 2022 ADA web guidance warns that automated tools alone don't guarantee compliance — a store still has to meet the underlying standard.
Lawsuits target overlay sites anywayPlaintiffs' firms know overlays don't reach the markup, so an installed widget is not the shield it's marketed as.
456ADA website lawsuits filed in the first half of 2025 targeted sites that already had an accessibility overlay installed — 22.6% of that period's total.
$1MFTC order against accessiBe (2025) for misrepresenting what its overlay could achieve.
What to use instead
The alternative isn't a different overlay — it's fixing what a plaintiff's expert or an EAA auditor would actually check: the HTML itself. Look for a tool that:
- Scans your store's real markup against WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria, not a generic checklist
- Names the specific failure and where it is (which image, which form field, which link) instead of a single pass/fail score
- Leaves nothing running on the storefront after you've fixed the code — no ongoing script, no visitor-facing widget
- Helps you publish the accessibility statement the EAA requires, since a scan alone doesn't satisfy that part
That's the model AccessKit uses: scan → fix the real markup → publish the statement. See the full AccessKit vs accessiBe comparison for specifics, including the FTC order details.
Run a real scan instead of an overlay
Free plan scans your own store. No script left running on your storefront.
Scan my store