Accessibility Benchmarking for Product Roadmapping

About Hand Talk

Hand Talk is an award-winning accessibility platform that uses AI to translate digital content into sign language through virtual avatars. Hand Talk was acquired by Sorenson (opens in a new tab), a global language services provider and the leader in communication solutions for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities.

The research problem

"How do we position Hand Talk's accessibility plugin competitively in the B2B market while ensuring we build features that genuinely serve users with disabilities?"

Key questions:

• What accessibility functionalities do leading competitors offer?
• Which features align with WCAG compliance requirements?
• How do we balance user impact with development effort?
• What opportunities exist for strategic differentiation?

Research approach

I needed to understand what accessibility features actually mattered to users, which ones our competitors were missing, and where Hand Talk's unique strengths could give us an advantage.

Accessibility isn't just about feature parity. It's about understanding genuine user needs and compliance requirements.

Competitor selection:

• C1: market leader with a comprehensive accessibility toolkit
• C2: strong enterprise focus and established client base
• C3: enterprise focus with a client base
• C4: enterprise-focused with major corporate clients
• C5: Brazilian competitor with Libras support

Research framework

I created a multi-dimensional evaluation framework that went beyond simple feature comparison.

Mapping matrix

• Cataloged every accessibility feature across all five competitors
• Mapped each feature to specific WCAG 2.1 success criteria (A, AA, AAA levels)
• Identified target user groups for each functionality

Impact assessment

A scoring system that weighted user impact across disability types, to reflect the varying levels of friction users actually face online:

Impacted groups. We added +1 point per additional group benefiting from a solution, so features that serve several groups at once rise in the ranking.

Effort evaluation

We held a collaborative session with the full development team to align on effort levels and finalize the scoring model: low effort 1.0×, medium 0.75×, high 0.5×.

Competitive landscape

I documented 43 different accessibility features across all platforms, which revealed some significant patterns.

Initial insights: WCAG compliance gaps

Despite accessibility being the core value proposition:

• Only 60% of features properly addressed WCAG Level A requirements
• Most competitors focused on Level AAA enhancements while missing Level A fundamentals

Prioritization

Based on the research findings and strategic considerations, the team prioritized seven core features for implementation.

The seven features

Results & impact

The research provided the strategic clarity needed for Hand Talk's B2B market entry. All seven recommended features were incorporated into the 2024 product roadmap.

• 43 → 7

  Features benchmarked, then prioritized for the roadmap

• 3 categories

  Font controls, navigation support, colour controls

• A → AAA

  Full alignment across WCAG conformance levels

Clear differentiation was established through strategic feature selection, AI-powered enhancements like dictionary support, and the Libras and ASL avatars, which no competitor could match.

On the business side: a successful B2B market reentry, and a foundation for future AI-powered accessibility innovations. Sorenson subsequently announced its acquisition of Hand Talk to develop automated sign language translation capabilities.

Lessons learned

A clear, structured evaluation kept the process fair and reduced bias, and scoring features by their impact across different disabilities gave a realistic sense of what truly benefits users.

Involving real users earlier would have provided deeper insight into their actual needs and pain points.

Meeting WCAG guidelines is essential, but how well you apply them is what really matters. And understanding the unique market context, like the importance of Libras support in Brazil, opens up valuable opportunities that a feature-parity comparison would miss entirely.