A site everyone could actually use.
An accessibility-led rebuild and performance overhaul gave a public-interest organisation the reach its work deserved.
- Industry
- Nonprofits
- Duration
- 8 weeks
- Division
- Platform & Support
- Year
- 2026
Platform & Support / deliveredCivic Thread served an audience with a high proportion of disabled users and had an accessibility overlay widget installed on a site that failed 34 WCAG criteria underneath it. The donation flow could not be completed with a keyboard alone.
Page weight had grown to over 6MB, which for users on older devices and limited data plans was an access barrier of its own.
We audited manually with screen readers, grouped 200-odd findings into nine component-level causes, and fixed those — removing the overlay entirely in the process.
Performance work targeted the three real causes: unoptimised imagery, four analytics tags nobody could justify, and render-blocking fonts. Axe checks and performance budgets went into CI to hold the line.
The donation journey is now completable by keyboard and screen reader, and the site conforms to WCAG 2.2 AA with automated regression checks. Page weight fell by 78%.
Completed donations rose 34% quarter on quarter, most of the gain coming from mobile users who previously abandoned before the form loaded.
One accessibility specialist, one designer, one engineer
- A small team with no developer had to own the site afterwards
- Donation flow could not go offline at any point
- Budget fixed by a grant with a reporting deadline
Removing the accessibility overlay was the first change, not the last. It was actively interfering with users’ own screen readers, which the client had assumed was their fault.
Grouping 200-plus findings into nine component causes turned a project the team had abandoned twice into eight weeks of tractable work. We now always report findings this way.
Accessibility (ADA/WCAG)
Audits and remediation that make the product usable for everyone and defensible on paper.
Speed & performance optimisation
Core Web Vitals, bundle size and server response times taken seriously enough to move revenue.
Website & app maintenance
Ongoing updates, monitoring and a senior person to reach when something needs deciding.
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