LendKey Accessibility Audit
Web Accessibility Remediation for LendKey website to make it conforms with the WCAG technical standards and comply with the ADA.
This LendKey accessibility audit and WCAG 2.1 AA remediation tackled a platform where almost every meaningful action happens inside an interactive component. LendKey is a United States financial-technology marketplace that connects borrowers with a network of community banks and credit unions for student-loan refinancing, private student loans and home-improvement loans.
Rather than lending directly, LendKey runs a unified online application that lets a borrower check rates, compare offers from hundreds of community lenders, and complete the whole process — verification, e-signature and decisioning — in one digital journey. Its value lives in forms, calculators, comparison views and account tools, not in static pages. For a borrower who relies on a screen reader or a keyboard, the accessibility of those components is the difference between securing a better loan and being shut out of one.
Table of Contents
Why accessibility is critical for a lending marketplace
Financial services is among the most frequently litigated sectors in United States web-accessibility law. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title III, a lender’s digital services are treated as a place of public accommodation, and courts have repeatedly used WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the working standard for what “accessible” means. For a platform like LendKey the obligation runs deeper than legal risk: a multi-step application a blind applicant cannot complete, or a rate comparison a keyboard user cannot navigate, excludes exactly the borrowers who most need a fair, lower-cost loan.
Scope and standard
Our LendKey accessibility audit assessed the site against WCAG 2.1 Level AA, mapped to ADA Title III, covering the journeys that carry the most weight on a lending marketplace: the rate-check entry point, the offer-comparison view across multiple lenders, the unified multi-step application, identity and account verification, e-signature, and the borrower account area.
How we ran the LendKey accessibility audit
- Screen-reader testing with JAWS and NVDA on Windows, VoiceOver on macOS and iOS, and TalkBack on Android
- Automated audits with Deque axe, Google Lighthouse and WAVE
- Keyboard-only operation of every step, with attention to focus order and a clearly visible focus indicator
- Colour-contrast analysis, plus 400% zoom and reflow testing for low-vision users
What accessibility means on each part of the platform
Because LendKey is built around forms and decisioning rather than content, our LendKey accessibility audit focused on the components a marketplace depends on:
- The application forms need programmatic labels, clear instructions and error messages that are announced to assistive technology, so a screen-reader user always knows what a field expects and why a submission failed — essential when the form gates access to credit.
- The rate-check and offer comparison need to be fully keyboard-operable, with results conveyed in text rather than by visual layout alone, so a borrower can compare lenders without relying on sight.
- Multi-step flows need managed focus as each step loads and a status assistive technology can announce, so progress is never silent or lost.
- Comparison tables of rates and terms need correct table semantics, so rows and columns stay meaningful out of visual context.
- Verification, e-signature and account screens need accessible controls, sufficient colour contrast, visible focus, and content that reflows cleanly at high zoom.
Outcome
This LendKey accessibility audit, combining manual and automated testing with remediation, brought LendKey’s core borrower journeys into line with WCAG 2.1 AA and ADA Title III expectations, so applicants using assistive technology can check rates, compare community-lender offers and complete an application without barriers — the same experience every borrower deserves from a platform built to put people before profit. Because lending disclosures and decisions are legally sensitive, every fix was verified with assistive technology rather than assumed from an automated pass, so the compliance holds up in real use and not just in a scan.