Case study
From never-audited to defensible
A long-established Southern California nonprofit came to us with a Squarespace site that had never been audited for accessibility. Here is what we found, what we fixed, and what they keep on file.
What we found
The usual problems, accumulated over years
Like most small-organization sites, nobody had done anything wrong on purpose. Issues had simply accumulated: not a single image on the site had alt text, several of the theme's color styles failed WCAG's minimum contrast requirement, and downloadable PDFs were unreadable to a screen reader.
Every one of those gaps is exactly what a plaintiff's automated scanner flags, and in California each cited violation carries a $4,000 statutory minimum under the Unruh Act, plus attorney's fees. Cleaning up 80-plus missing alt texts before a demand letter arrives costs a small fraction of responding to one after.
80+
Images given descriptive alt text. The site previously had none.
3 of 8
Theme color styles in use that failed WCAG AA contrast, all fixed to meet the 4.5:1 requirement.
100%
Of major pages verified navigable and usable by keyboard alone, no mouse required.
1
Dated remediation record delivered, documenting every issue, every fix, and the testing methodology.
What we did
A full WCAG 2.2 AA audit, then fixes in their CMS
Automated scanning plus manual keyboard and screen-reader testing, because scanners catch less than half of real-world issues. All remediation was done directly in Squarespace.
Remediated
- Descriptive alt text written and added for 80+ images
- Three failing theme color styles brought up to the AA 4.5:1 contrast ratio, with before-and-after ratios recorded
- Keyboard-only navigation verified across all major pages
- A full NVDA screen-reader walkthrough with findings logged
Documented honestly, including the limits
Not everything can be fixed inside a hosted platform, and pretending otherwise is how vendors get clients sued. The record also documents what Squarespace itself does not allow: full ARIA injection, and heading restructures that would require a design migration. Flagged PDFs came with a concrete recommendation for accessible alternatives. If a claim ever cites those areas, the organization can show they were identified, assessed, and addressed as far as the platform permits.
The deliverable
A dated remediation record they keep on file
If a demand letter ever arrives, this organization is not starting from zero. They have dated evidence of a good-faith, professionally documented accessibility effort: every issue found, every fix made, the exact contrast ratios measured, and the testing methodology used. That is what their attorney would work with, and it is what makes them a far less attractive target than a site that has never been touched.
There was a side benefit, too. Descriptive alt text and cleaner structure are things search engines and AI answer engines reward, so the same work that reduced legal exposure also improved how the site reads to Google and to AI-driven search. Page descriptions can be added in the same pass when that service is requested.
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